Hunger
by Jadism
Summary: If anyone had noticed, they hadn't spoken a word of it. It was such a small difference in his body that Kylo wasn't concerned about anyone noticing it just yet. He was concerned, however, about keeping his trembling hands and the fact that he felt that he could collapse at any given moment from every being he came in contact with. / Or Kylo Ren copes in unhealthy ways.
1. Chapter 1

Much like what Rey and Leia felt when Luke died, Kylo Ren felt it too. Only it didn't feel like peace and purpose, it felt like a slap in the face.

He had intended to slaughter Luke just moments before, only to be made to feel like a child when he realized that Luke had used the Force to project himself as a distraction to aid in the escape of what was left of the Resistance. Kylo might not have felt so dejected if he had been the one to kill Luke. He truly did want the satisfaction of getting revenge on his former master who only saw the worst in him and made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The new Supreme Leader of the First Order didn't have time for a moment of silence or even a second to breathe; he only had time to spout orders and attempt to formulate a plan.

The anxiety consumed him, only managing to get worse when he finally had the chance to be alone. Although he remained physically alone, the Force connected him with Rey in a way that could only be described as spiritual. She stared back at him and he hoped that she would say something, anything. He wished that maybe she could see that something inside him was still good and invite him to come with her. Yet neither of those things happened. Kylo found himself unable to speak or move; instead, he watched her close the door to the ship that he'd been on with his family countless times in a past life. The short and meaningless life spent as Ben Solo.

Rey severed the connection and was now out of his reach in more ways than one. What added insult to injury was the fact that she was leaving on the ship that had once been known as his parents' ship.

From what he knew of Rey's interactions with both his father and his mother, he gathered that Rey was the child that his parents would have wanted if they were capable of getting a do-over on their job of parenthood. So somehow, it was fitting. Though Kylo thought if Rey had experienced the unstable upbringing he'd had, she probably would have turned too.

He looked down at his gloved hand, where he held the dice that hung in the very ship that the most important people in his life were leaving on. As soon as he gave attention to the shiny gold object, it faded from his view until he no longer saw it or felt its weight. The memories hit him all at once. The dice hung in their ship and he would watch them clink together on every trip when they were all together and they were a family.

Back when they were a family, Ben's father would tell tall tales about his adventures and the Force and the Jedi; Ben's mother would modestly correct the stories to her son, but never to whatever house guests that her husband happened to be telling these stories to.

Back when they were a family, Ben would feign frustration each time his mother would look at him in the morning and tell him he looked taller. He would groan as she made him stand against the wall where she would make another mark in pencil that would prove that he was indeed growing. Yet, he couldn't deny that he was secretly hoping he'd be taller than his father someday. Based on the last time he would ever see his father, this wish appeared to have come true.

Back when they were a family, his father would try a little bit harder than he had to in order to maintain a relationship with his son since he didn't have the same connection that Ben had with his mother. So they would take special trips together sometimes, just the two of them. His father was the one who showed him how to pilot a ship and how to shoot a blaster.

As Ben grew older, his father began to leave a lot, his mother would work a lot to deal with the loneliness she felt when he was gone, and young Ben Solo felt that he was left to face the world - and himself - alone. He'd learned how to pilot a ship, how to shoot a blaster, how to understand Wookiee, and someday through his Uncle Luke he was going to learn how to wield a lightsaber and become stronger with the Force. Of all the things he had learned or was due to learn, no one ever taught him what to do with the bad thoughts that were getting increasingly worse as time went on.

The bad thoughts were dismissed as teenage rage when Ben gathered the courage to speak of them, and he was sent to Luke sooner than they'd planned. So when a certain humanoid alien spilled the secrets that his family had desperately tried to keep from him; namely, how his grandfather had dealt with bad thoughts through the dark side of the Force, it made sense. It didn't feel right, but it made sense. The more time he spent with Snoke, the more sense it seemed to make, and the more he began to admire Darth Vader. Much like his grandfather, there was no place for someone with thoughts like Ben in the light side of the Force.

He tried to listen to both Snoke and to Luke, though he knew that at some point he would have to make a choice between the two conflicting points of view. When Ben woke up to find his uncle threateningly holding a lightsaber over him, he knew what he had to do.

Snoke was demeaning and would hurt Ben with words, yet Snoke had never tried to murder him, at least with Snoke he felt that his life might be spared.

Now Snoke is gone, Luke is gone, and Kylo has no master or leader. He's in complete control of himself and the whole First Order.

And somehow, he's never felt such a lack of control in his life.

When he started his morning back on his base, the day after the would-have-been massacre, the calm orderliness was unnerving. They were winning, yes, but they'd lost what could have been the final battle by letting the Resistance escape. It was his own fault too. What a great fearless leader he turned out to be.

The first thing he did after assuming his new position was fail. It suited him.

While every eating creature in the First Order took their shifts to eat breakfast, Kylo avoided the kitchen as if the food would be the sole perpetrator for every emotion that he was trying to keep under lock and key. After he had failed the entire First Order, it didn't seem right to go on like nothing had happened. A single skipped meal wouldn't ruin him, and the punishment was subtle enough to go unnoticed.

More than anything, he just didn't want to interact with anyone.

Instead of eating breakfast, he found himself walking about aimlessly, pretending to give great attention to every monitor, every stormtrooper he passed, every crack in the wall that he'd probably made in anger but honestly didn't remember the reason for any longer. No one would say a word because Kylo Ren was known for killing people without hesitation and force-choking people if they said something that made him upset. No one would dare to tell him what happened with the Resistance was his own fault and that if he hadn't spent so much time trying to kill his former master that they could have finished this thing for good. He already knew it, but if anyone dared to speak it, they knew his anger would flare and he would attack. Though, he would only attack because the dark side doesn't hesitate, not necessarily because it would be his first instinct to do so.

He remembered how if he went too long without eating as a young boy his temper would rise and he would snap at everyone and everything. His mother would notice quickly and tell him his blood sugar was low and make him something to eat, and afterward, he would feel significantly less angry. If he waited long enough maybe the hunger would turn into anger and he wouldn't have to calculate every single move he made. He could be pulled out of this melancholia into a state of being that held some familiarity.

Out of some sick combination of self-hatred and morbid curiosity, he didn't eat anything that day.

As expected, no one said anything.

–

He awakened the following morning with a clear head and an empty stomach. The pathways in his mind weren't as chaotic as he presumed they would be, it felt more like order and control. Either way, the change was welcomed.

Instead of eating breakfast, he immediately went to work on plans to bring order to the galaxy by destroying the Resistance.

Instead of eating lunch, he planned a time for the departure of a few TIE fighters for a special mission to try to find the Resistance base.

Instead of eating dinner, he drank water until he felt sick and curled up on the floor in the fetal position and waited for the pangs of hunger wracking his body to dissipate.

–

The first person to say something is Hux. "You haven't come to a meal in two days."

"I know," Kylo said.

–

Based on Hux's observation, Kylo decided that his curiosity was satisfied after his two days without food and that maybe he'd suffered enough for his recent failures. If he were to say he was upset about having to return to his normal eating patterns, he'd be lying.

When he sat in front of his plate of food though, something felt very wrong. He looked closely at the plate, carefully examining each component of the meal that was not at all dissimilar to that of everyone else. It seemed odd to him that everyone had more or less the same amount of food, a concept that hadn't struck him before. Surely not everyone in the First Order had the exact same energy requirements. His stomach was begging for attention, the savory smell only making the sensation of hunger that much more palpable.

He wasn't prepared for how his body would tremble in terror at the mere thought of eating the meal in front of him nor the fact that something in his brain would remind him he didn't deserve nourishment. His body wanted it desperately; the sounds coming from his stomach were so clamorous that Kylo wanted to punch his abdomen just to quiet it and avoid the unwanted attention.

A calculating expression graced his face. If he ate half of the meal in front of him, his body would have something in it and be able to run a little bit better. If he left the other half on the plate, his brain would still be able to function without having to worry about accidentally triggering other emotions.

By the time he even starts eating, everyone else is halfway finished. That works, since by the time he eats half of his meal, everyone else will be finished, and they will be none the wiser.

–

The routine dragged on for days, and there appeared to be no discernible expiration date. Kylo made sure to eat, but to never eat quite enough to satisfy the hunger he felt deep inside. He blamed his supposed lack of appetite on a stomach illness or a topic that had come up at the table that he could claim bothered him deeply. It was important to answer the questions that no one was asking about him and his eating habits. He didn't even see the questions floating around in their brains, but if he could make the questions cease before they appear, it would be for the best.

The meals give him just enough energy to walk around the base, practice his battle skills, and fall asleep at night. The meals keep him just hungry enough to give him the semblance of being in control of his thoughts and emotions. Whether he was actually in control or just didn't have the energy to think or feel anything his body deemed unnecessary, he wasn't sure. He didn't find that it made much of a difference either way.

This hadn't been the first time that he withheld food from himself. He'd found himself skipping meals every once in a while when he was too busy to eat, or more often, when he needed to punish himself for something. But restricting his food for longer than a day or so was something that he had never done before; so although he was used to feeling the symptoms afflicting his brain and body that his mother explained away as low blood sugar, he wasn't used to how restricting food for an extended period of time affected his thought process.

His morbid curiosity only grew stronger with each passing day.

–

Kylo saw Rey for the first time in ten days. The night had fallen upon his base hours ago, and the sight of Rey felt like the first glimpse of the sun after a storm that seemed like it would never cease.

"You too?" Kylo asked, seeing very clearly that she'd been trying to sleep to, wherever she was in the galaxy.

Rey blinked in response as all hope of finding sleep vanished. "Why are we doing this now?" She sighed in exasperation. Her frustration was quickly noted by Kylo. Maybe he was wrong in his comparison of sunshine. Maybe it was more like the rain was still pouring, just not quite as heavily, and for a brief moment, it felt like there was hope that the storm would cease.

"I don't know, it's not like I have control over it."

A dull ache struck Rey in the pit of her stomach; she didn't quite understand what she was feeling, nor what it meant. Kylo didn't appear to be injured, so she wondered if the feeling was his and she was feeling it through the Force bond, or if somehow it was her own after all. Either way, she didn't find it appropriate to ask.

"So why are you up?" Rey asked.

"I don't think you'll want to hear it," Kylo said in a threatening tone. Rey reasonably assumed this was a threat to her or the Resistance.

"And that's what's keeping me up..." The look in Rey's eyes was that of someone who was staring death in the face, yet she failed to realize that maybe that was the same look in Kylo's eyes as well.

"What do you think I'm doing?" Kylo asked with a bit of fear and curiosity. How this Force bond worked, he still wasn't quite sure. How much did she know?

"Plotting against the Resistance," Rey said in an accusatory tone as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Kylo scoffed. It was both a sound of relief, but also that of dejection. He didn't want her to know what he was doing, but he also didn't want her thinking that he saw her only as a tool to be used in aiding the First Order in destroying the Resistance. While that's what she was to him this entire time more or less, the Force bond they shared changed that. Even if he destroyed the entire Resistance fleet, he'd go out of his way to spare her, no matter what he might have said to the contrary.

"You think you know me so well," Kylo said in a lower pitch, as if he were trying to entice her.

"I thought so, Ben."

Rey's face faded from Kylo's view as their Force bond concluded and the pair were then again faced with their own surroundings and insomnia. Rey to a sleepless night as Finn tended to a recovering Rose, and Kylo to a sleepless night of hunger and intrusive thoughts about food.

In a state of being that fell somewhere between consciousness and dreaming, Kylo rose from his bed in the middle of the night, where no one would catch him in an act that he deemed as being quite shameful. Hunger will wear on anyone, and Kylo hadn't experienced much in the way of hunger until now. Not really.

What his parents lacked in emotional availability they made up for in an overabundance of things. He never went without food or water or clothing or a place to sleep. He just didn't always have someone to share a meal with, or someone to tell him if the items of clothing he was wearing looked good together, or someone to say goodnight to.

Either way, the hunger was wearing on him and his craving for food was growing more intense day by day. If he snuck into the kitchen when the fewest amount of beings were conscious, he could probably avoid being greeted with disdainful glances.

The kitchen was all but abandoned when he reached it. He'd never really noticed how big and vast the room was. Anytime he'd occupied it, he was one of hundreds. If he had been one of hundreds in the room, the embarrassment alone would have been enough to make him leave just as quickly as he'd come in. The incongruous truth was that he wanted to be seen eating, he wanted to convince his subordinates that he was in good enough condition to be their leader, yet eating was something that his brain was beginning to associate with shame and shame was something that must be hidden at all costs.

As Kylo rummaged through the food in the kitchen, he found his body was working faster than his mind. His brain couldn't formulate enough thoughts to stop him from what he was doing, his body was overriding his thoughts of panic and doom, for all his body was yearning for was food.

The next morning was a bit more foggy, even after spending nearly an hour examining his stomach, he couldn't determine whether it was a dream or if it actually happened, but he felt indescribably guilty for it. Based on the slight distention of his stomach - or had it always looked like that? - he comes to the conclusion that it had actually happened in a horrible lapse of judgment. Then and there, he swore to himself that he would never lose control like that again.


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the kitchen incident that Kylo tried to avoid thinking of, after a couple of days his body no longer carried the excess weight from it. In fact, he found that he had to pull his robe even tighter than before just to make it fit correctly.

Soon, he would have to take all of his garments to a tailor droid to rid them of the extra fabric that he no longer had a use for.

If anyone had noticed, they hadn't spoken a word of it. It was such a small difference in his body that Kylo wasn't concerned about anyone noticing it just yet; he was concerned, however, about keeping his trembling hands and the fact that he felt that he could collapse at any given moment from every being he came in contact with. This only led to him seeking solitude that much more. He had always retreated into himself due to his introverted nature, but this was becoming extreme. When he left his precious solitude to come to a meal, he came with the appearance of a starving scavenger but didn't display the appetite of one.

The less energy taken in, the better.

Kylo had planned it so Hux could no longer count the days that Kylo wouldn't eat, because, well, there wouldn't be days to count if he made sure to have at least something every day.

"Why are you playing with your food, Supreme Leader?" A stormtrooper assigned to eat lunch at the same time as Kylo Ren earned himself a force-choke for his concern. It only lasted about two seconds before he was let go, instead of the heavy breathing that usually followed a force-choke, a simple gasp sufficed this time. Kylo Ren slowly lowered his hand; he hadn't meant to let the man go so quickly, but the concentration he usually felt coursing through his veins simply wasn't there.

He wasn't ignorant; he fully knew the cause of his lack of concentration.

An eerie silence fell upon the table. Each person's eyes darted from one person to the next, looking for someone who would know what to say or what to do. Kylo noticed this behavior among his inferiors and got up and left suddenly with his second in command right on his tail. This fact was completely unbeknownst to Kylo, at least until Hux spoke up. "Are you okay?"

Kylo stopped in his tracks. "What?" Kylo asked, using a tone that was a bit angrier than he intended.

"You've been ill; your appetite's gone, Sir."

"Oh, right." Kylo sighed in relief and started walking forward yet again.

"Unless-" Hux started.

"I've been ill, yes," Kylo interjected before Hux could add anything else to the conversation.

"You know, Supreme Leader," Kylo turned around to look Hux in the eye, offended by his condescending tone. "If you are this ill, maybe you should step down for a bit..."

"I'm not as ill as you seem to think." The anger that Kylo had been trying so hard to feel welled up in him until he tried to throw Hux against a wall by means of the Force, but couldn't summon the concentration to do it. Hux gave him a look of superiority because after all, he was right and he knew that Kylo knew it.

Kylo lowered his hand and walked off with his eyes pointed downward.

When Kylo found himself in his comforting solitude, he let the pangs of hunger overtake his feelings of embarrassment. And when he focused on the pain, really focused on it, it gave him a sense of serenity that he hadn't felt in a long time.

Yet, it was hard for him to forget that the only two things he had really done as Supreme Leader were these: fail, and make scenes in the kitchen like a little boy who really didn't want to eat his vegetables.

Except, he really did want to eat his vegetables and then finish everything else on his plate and then get another, but that would be considered a loss of control. He didn't quite know what he was trying to control, much less how to stop what he had started. Hell, he wasn't sure what it was that he'd even started in the first place.

Hux was right. He'd spent so much time worrying about what to do when faced with the room of terrors known as the kitchen that he'd nearly forgotten that they were in the middle of an intergalactic war and he was supposed to be a leader in it.

Hux was right. Kylo felt anger begin to fill him at the mere thought of Hux becoming the new Supreme Leader until he found no other way to let it out other than on himself. He felt the discomfort in his stomach and decided to worsen it. He balled his hand into a fist and struck the cause of his pain, letting out a gasp as he did so.

Rapidly and repeatedly, he struck himself in his stomach until he couldn't take any more pain. The affected area felt much like a battle wound. He wondered if he'd done any damage besides burst a few capillaries, but the curiosity ended almost as soon as it began. After all, he'd done this to himself and therefore, he didn't have the right to worry about it.

–

Rey felt a punch to the gut before anything else. She looked down, wondering what had hit her before she saw Kylo and it began to make sense. She was face to face with a sallow-skinned man with dark circles under his eyes that had somehow grown more conspicuous since she'd last seen him. "Did you get in a fight?" Rey asked in a breathy voice, still trying to regulate her breathing after what she had felt.

"What do you mean?" Kylo asked, genuinely confused.

"I feel what you feel."

"It's nothing."

"It's something. Who hurt you?" Rey asked. She knew she shouldn't care, but she couldn't seem to help herself.

"Why do you want to know?"

Rey hesitated before answering. "I... don't."

"You do."

"I just..." Rey shook her head and changed the subject. "Why is this connection still happening if Snoke is gone?"

"I'm unsure," Kylo said in a brooding manner.

Rey focused intently on Kylo's face. She wasn't sure what had happened to him since they last spoke, but she was certain that something had. He somehow seemed more broken and she wasn't sure how that was even possible. She already viewed him as the saddest person she'd ever met. Even sadder than she herself was when she was alone on Jakku.

"Are you sure nothing happened to you?" Rey asked.

"I'm sure."

Kylo knew Rey wouldn't believe him if she felt even a fraction of the physical pain that he was in. Yet, he knew that he could stop her from asking by denying it enough. He wanted desperately to ask her if she was okay, what was going on where she was, but he couldn't ask. He was on the other side of the war.

He was her biggest threat, even if he didn't seem like much of a threat these days.

"Okay," Rey said.

The pain was the first thing to leave her when their connection ended. If she thought there was conflict inside him before, she found it to be almost minute compared to what she felt in him now.

She knew that she had to get to him somehow, but she wasn't sure how she could. Besides, she'd fallen for this trick of his already.

Even if it felt more like something appropriate for a child to do, Rey knew she had to talk to Leia. Telling on Kylo Ren seemed very odd to her, yet, she knew his mother would have some amount of compassion for him still.

Ever since Leia had been given time to mourn over her recent losses, it seemed as though that's all she'd been doing. Only in the two most recent days had she started to truly become a leader again, though it would still take time.

Rey doubted that she should even say anything about Ben when she finally came face to face with Leia. Maybe there was a reason that the idea of talking to Leia about her fallen son struck her as childish and ridiculous when the idea had occurred to her.

Rey had never viewed Leia as small. Her vivacious personality was larger than she was, and that tended to be the first impression she would give, not her physicality. However, Leia had become very soft-spoken over the past fortnight and only tended to speak up when it was deemed absolutely necessary. Her softness made Rey see how fragile Leia really was. That being said, all Rey had ever seen of Leia was heartbroken Leia. She hadn't even met Leia until after the tragic death of her husband. Even heartbroken Leia was a force to be reckoned with. Given a moment to reflect on everything she'd lost, she'd become inconsolable and needed time.

Leia welcomed Rey's presence. The hopeful young girl often proved to be a welcome distraction from her own mind.

Rey wasn't smiling though, and she appeared stiff and apprehensive, Leia felt that she could wrap her arms around Rey and it would feel more like hugging a droid than a fellow human. Regardless, Leia was a hugger and Rey was a friend and deserved to be treated as such.

They sat together in a silent embrace for a few minutes. Leia needed it desperately, and Rey was starved of human touch after a lifetime on Jakku. Hugs weren't a foreign concept to Rey. She'd seen them on Jakku. She knew they were comforting and indicative of love and affection, she'd just not experienced much in the way of love and affection until the past few weeks. There was so much lost time to make up. Finally, Rey took a deep breath and spoke with a soft voice. "There's something wrong with Ben," she said. She closed her eyes tightly. The words were out.

Leia let out a sound that sounded like a bitter laugh. "There's been something wrong with Ben for a long time, he's gone."

"No," Rey corrected her. "Luke is gone, Han is gone, even Snoke is gone. Ben is alive. He still has a chance."

Leia let go of Rey, narrowing her eyes at the younger woman. "Where is this coming from? What do you think is wrong with him?"

"I don't know," Rey said. She knew her argument was too weak to convince Leia of anything, but she thought that Leia had to feel it too. Leia's connection with Ben had to be stronger than anything she could imagine; after all, Leia was his mother.

"You're gonna need to give more details than that," Leia said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. The sarcasm brought a smile to Rey's face.

"Right. Snoke bonded our minds. I don't know how, but he did. We keep being connected by The Force. I don't know why, or how to stop it. I didn't want to tell you because of the whole conflict of interest thing. Same reason you don't tell anyone your son is..." Rey stopped herself, looking around to make sure that no one was eavesdropping, "Kylo Ren," she finishes her statement in a hushed tone.

"You're connected... by The Force?" Leia asked slowly, as if there was an easy-to-miss detail hidden in her question.

"Yes. We can see each other, and we can talk to each other. That's it."

"So you talk to him?"

"Yes. I just saw him a few minutes ago. He's clearly in pain, I could feel that much. He looks older than the last time I saw him, more pale... more sad." Rey shook her head, she knew how vague she was being, but it was all the information she had.

Leia looked away with a sigh before turning back to the younger girl. "I can't remember a time where he wasn't pale and sad."

"I feel like maybe something should be done about it."

"He's made his choice, Rey. I'm not sure there's much light in him anymore. There's nothing else that anyone can do for him unless he wants to help himself."

"But what if he can't?"

"I'm sure he can, he's in control of the whole First Order now..." Leia said, shuddering with the realization of how powerful her unstable son had become.

Rey sighed. She knew it was a long shot to tell Ben's mother that there was some strange thing wrong with him but that she didn't know what it was and assume that anything could be done at all. He was an adult, and he was more than a couple years older than Rey was. She had to believe that he was capable of taking care of himself. Whatever was going on, he'd have to deal with it on his own.

"I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No, it's okay. I'm glad I know about the Force bond now," Leia said. "Just... be careful. He could hurt you. I keep having this dream... I don't want to risk losing you too."

"What dream?" Rey asked.

"It's Ben. Not Ben now, but when he was a teenager... and he pushes Han over, and the earth completely swallows him up," Leia said. "I guess since I knew it happened, but I didn't see it happen, my brain formulated some sort of image of it..."

Rey doesn't dare tell Leia that what had actually happened was much worse than her subconscious had come up with. "I'm sorry that you keep having this dream, really. But it doesn't mean that he's going to hurt me." Rey said, wondering if her own statement was accurate.

Leia saw the vacancy in Rey's expression and stared her down until she got a reaction from Rey that proved that she was still in the same universe. "Be careful," Leia said once Rey's attention was finally back on her. Rey nodded and got up.

Rey decided to leave the subject alone for now, but if there was another Force bond session that concerned her, she decided that she had to at least ask him what was going on for her own peace of mind. The worst that could happen is he would refuse to talk about it. What else could be done from lightyears away?

–

When Rey inevitably saw him again, she almost forgot the warnings that she heard from his mother. He was leaning against something, sitting on the ground. When Kylo sensed her, he sat up straight, rubbing the non-existent sleep from his eyes.

"Why do you look so worn out?" Rey asked.

"Because I am," Kylo said.

"One too many sleepless nights?" Rey asked in a joking manner, though the sentiment behind it was absolutely not a joke.

"Sure, that's it," Kylo said sarcastically.

The quiet no longer felt awkward between them, it had grown to be comfortable, yet Rey still had to break it. "Leia says she misses you."

Kylo Ren shook his head. "She doesn't."

"She does. She told me to tell you." It was only half a lie, Rey decided as soon as the words departed from her mouth.

"She doesn't. She wouldn't want to see me. Not after... what I've done. Not after... everything."

"She talks about you all the time."

"What are you trying to do? Save me? Bring me to the light?" Kylo asked, not believing there could be any other reason for her to bring up such emotional subjects.

"No. That's something only you can do."

Kylo stared intently at her serene face. Maybe his first impression of her being like sunshine was right; she calmed the storm he felt inside. It was on a temporary basis, but it counted for something. He wanted more than anything for her to join him. Not only to bring balance to the Force, but to bring balance to himself.

"I can't." Their connection ended before Kylo could expand any further. Not that he had anything meaningful to say.

The next time Rey felt the connection, it was completely one-sided. Kylo was attacking someone, and that's all she could gather given the fact that she couldn't see anything but him. Then he sported a dizzy look and stumbled about before collapsing.

Rey's connection was lost.

–

Kylo came around to the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. "You know, I can't keep training you if you won't get yourself looked at. This has happened twice in the past three days. You can't say this is nothing again."

No concern, not even a simple "Are you okay?"

Everyone is giving up on him, and he doesn't blame them.

"I will try harder."

"Maybe you need to stop trying so hard," Kylo watched as his personal trainer walked away from him. Apparently, if you vehemently refuse to go to the med-bay, people start to give up on you.

"Fine, I will prepare for battle myself," Kylo said to the air with a growl that didn't typically accompany his speaking voice.

He can't say he really intended to train himself, but it made him feel more accomplished and stronger to act like he was going to.

He pulled himself up off the ground and managed to bring a glass of water over to him using the Force without spilling a drop. It was an accomplishment. He drank water like his life depended on it. Well, it did, but maybe not in the copious amounts that he would consume it in. It's not like he was eating food like his life depended on it, so something had to be done to try to make up for it.

"Ren," Hux's voice was all too familiar. "Are you too ill to be the Supreme Leader now?" He paced around Kylo in a very condescending manner. He knew he was right and that the once-mighty Kylo Ren had fallen and no one was quite sure why or what to do about it. All he knew is that Kylo couldn't help the First Order in his current state. At least, not at the top, and if we're being honest, probably not among the lowest ranks either.

Whatever concerns he might have had for him had to be pushed aside for the survival of the First Order. Tend to the war first, and if Kylo happened to survive until they reached the other side of the war, then they could try to get past his stubborn refusal to accept assistance and tend to him.

Kylo crossed his arms like a child. "No."

"Shall we bring this issue to the people? Let them vote on it?" Hux propositioned, still pacing around his current superior as if he knew in advance what Kylo would say.

"This isn't a democracy," Kylo said.

"It's not. However, you have done nothing since you crowned yourself Supreme Leader. We need to find the Resistance base, we need to end this."

Kylo felt his heart start to pound in his chest, to the point where it was causing even more pain in his already aching chest.

Hux took notice of the pained expression on Kylo's face. "Don't tell me you feel sympathy for the girl."

"I don't."

Hux rolled his eyes. "Ren, if you're not going to take control of this yourself, I will have this issue taken to the people."

"Do what you need to do. Just let me know before you do it." Kylo Ren gave in so easily that it would have concerned Hux if he weren't so concerned with being in power.

"I'm sorry, what?" Hux asked, uncertain of what he'd just heard.

"You heard me. I am still in charge, but I'm trusting you to take charge of..." Kylo hesitated. The word everything was foremost in his mind, yet telling Hux that he was in control of everything was the last thing he wanted to say. "Just do what you need to do," Kylo said, too mentally exhausted to argue with Hux or even with himself.

Hux had been far more willing to take the position than Kylo was to make the changes he needed to make in order to live up to the title he was trying to portray. As the Supreme Leader, Kylo felt much like he felt as a child when he tried to wear his father's clothes and he didn't come close to filling them. He could never be what Snoke was. He was having a hard enough time being what Kylo Ren once was.

–

With nothing left to lose, Kylo's continued self-destruction couldn't even convince him to resist the call to the light. The lack of sustenance wasn't making him angry anymore, it was making him numb. Maybe it was for the best, as a single morsel of food in his stomach more than it took to keep his body running at its current sub-optimal level would go to his brain and tell it that it had the energy for emotions.

When he woke up for the day, he always examined his body closely, seeing what had gotten smaller over the past few days. He never noticed much of a change, if any; he wouldn't have been convinced that there was a change at all had he not had to get his clothes taken in twice since his food restrictions began.

It took him twice as long to get ready as it had in the past due to the extra layers he would put on to seem bulkier and conserve body heat. Not to mention his ever-trembling hands that never seemed to be able to do what his brain told them to do on the first try.

Kylo was secretly thankful that Hux was taking control now.

He walked down the hall and sat down to breakfast with the rest of his normal group. His breakfast for the past few days had been hot water, which was all he seemed to be able to choke down given his current state of mind. He looked around at all the other meals that were being consumed around him. He imagined that his hot, energy-less beverage was anything else. If he stared hard enough at someone's oatmeal, and then drank his water, he could almost delude himself into tasting it.

He doubted that he should be showing up to the breakfast table just to drink water, but he figured that not eating was still better than not making an appearance at all. Especially today, when Hux took over and started talking about his big plans for destroying the Resistance. Plans that didn't involve Kylo at all. It was devastating, but Kylo couldn't say that he didn't understand why. If Hux had been passing out while practicing for battle, Kylo probably wouldn't want him doing anything too taxing either.

Kylo could feel eyes on him. Everyone seemed to be worried and wondering what had happened to make him give that much control to Hux, or maybe they knew but were looking to him for confirmation. While he knew that with a simple trick of the Force he could figure out what was truly going on in those minds, he felt that it was safer to not know and pretend like he was listening to Hux instead of daydreaming about eating bowls upon bowls of plain oatmeal.

Kylo knew he had to gain control over his eating habits if he wanted to earn any sort of First Order prominence again, but the desire was lacking in him on both accounts.

–

Hux came up to Kylo's quarters shortly after the meal. "Ren?" He asked, finding that it took him a little too long to even recognize the man that he once felt intimidated by. He still felt intimidated by Kylo Ren, he had to admit, yet he wasn't sure where Kylo Ren had gone.

Kylo looked up from his cup of hot water that he was holding onto for dear life. Had it been his third or fourth that day? Hux had lost track. Yet, Kylo still shivered like he did after the Battle of Starkiller Base. "What's happened to you?" Hux fully expected that Kylo would be mad at him for asking.

What he didn't expect was for Kylo Ren to shrug like it wasn't a big deal, look back down at the ground, and mumble that he didn't know.

Hux hesitated. "What?"

"I said I don't know!" Kylo Ren shouted characteristically.

"We need you, Ren. We need your brain and your Force-sensitivity, we need your help," Hux said.

"It's killing you to admit it," Kylo stated. He finally looked back up to Hux. "I'm still with you."

"Not really, you changed after the girl killed Supreme Leader Snoke."

"Can you blame me?"

"No." Hux sighed. "Even though we disagree on nearly everything, I was only at my best when you were. I need you at your best."

"I'll try..."

Hux wasn't convinced. Kylo Ren was never this compliant. Whatever was going on wasn't showing any signs of stopping, therefore, he knew Kylo wasn't really going to try, and that this conversation had been completely fruitless. Hux was nothing without Kylo to bounce ideas off of. Hux was nothing without someone to provoke him.

He'd never felt like more of a fraud. Maybe even despite his strange behavior, Kylo Ren truly deserved the title of Supreme Leader after all.

Though when he saw how dissociated from the world Kylo seemed to be, he knew that he'd made the right choice by coaxing him into giving up some control. He sincerely hoped that this was a temporary blip and that once Kylo had dealt with the losses he'd experienced that he would come around, yet somehow he knew that it wasn't going to be that easy.

For what might have been the first time in his life, he wanted to be proven wrong.

Hux gave Kylo one final look, hoping that somehow he'd talked some amount of sense into the sulking man, only to find that Kylo's attention wasn't anywhere close to being on Hux anymore. Hux sighed and left Kylo alone.

Kylo watched Hux leave, allowing the feelings of loneliness to overtake him. He felt hungry, irritable, and cold, only adding to his anguish. Rey appeared to Kylo when he felt most desperate; after Hux had left him to his own devices.

The pair just stared at each other for a while. Kylo expected Rey to make more comments about his current state of being, but she instead said nothing. Kylo was afraid that Rey would sever the Force-bond before he could even say anything, so he broke the silence quite suddenly.

"Where are you?" Kylo asked softly, a shred of desperation could have been detected by those who were accustomed to his transient moods.

Rey hesitated to tell him. After all, when the Supreme Leader of the First Order asks your location, you tend to be a little bit wary of divulging that information.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I want to be there. Wherever you are."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to be here anymore," Kylo said. His lip quivered as he held back tears with all his might.

Rey wanted to believe him, she really did. His track record didn't speak well though. He could end the Resistance so easily, considering the small number remaining in it.

"What?"

"I want to go home. But I don't know where home is anymore. Will you help me?"

The phrasing was reminiscent of what she'd heard from Kylo Ren moments before he killed Han Solo. He looked just as broken now as he did when he'd murdered his father that she thought maybe he was thinking of killing her and it was tearing him apart just as much.

"Are you plotting to kill me?"

Kylo's expression changed from that of desperation to that of confusion. "Why would you think that?"

"You killed Han Solo, why wouldn't you kill me too?"

"I won't. I don't know how to make you believe me but I won't!" Tears of frustration started to let their way out of Kylo's eyes despite his best efforts to control himself, and Rey's face fell. He couldn't be faking this. This was pure devastation.

"Tell me where I'll find you, and I'll get you when I can. Under one condition."

"Anything," Kylo said, just a bit too readily.

"Actually, there will be a lot of conditions..." Rey trailed off. "But you look very unwell. I'd like for you to see Dr. Kalonia the second you get here."


	3. Chapter 3

The First Order base had never been quite so chaotic, not even in Kylo Ren's brief stint as Supreme Leader. Hux darted in and out of every room, searching for any sign of the man that he used to dread being around. There was a single ship unaccounted for, and the security system mysteriously had to be turned back on that morning, which meant someone had to have turned it off. Very few people would have known how to do such a thing, and based on that, Hux knew deep down that Kylo wasn't there anymore.

Hux found himself wandering around in Kylo's quarters as if it might give him an answer by the third time he'd looked around. There were about ten empty cups scattered around, and Kylo had apparently added two extra blankets to his bed at some point. Other than those things, there was nothing else out of the ordinary. No note, no weapons, nothing pointing to the fact that he'd packed a bag to leave.

Hux had just tried to talk to Kylo not even twelve hours ago and was met with non-answers and what appeared to be outright misery.

With no way of knowing where Kylo had gone off to, and little hope of finding him now, Hux knew that he officially had to act as Supreme Leader permanently. He'd been wanting that title for some time now. He'd secretly hoped that Kylo would leave or otherwise disappoint Snoke or something so he wouldn't have to constantly compete with him.

Now that it's happened, and he had gained the title that he wanted, the feeling was simply okay.

* * *

Rey had lied to everyone about where she was going and why. The relief of her deception actually working would come to an end when she returned with an extra person that was unequivocally out of place. The only one that she couldn't lie to was Chewie, who she had convinced to come along to help her if it came to it.

She landed the Millennium Falcon near where she'd found it not so long ago. The planet she'd come from looked so desolate and spacious, much different from the crowded Resistance base that she had grown accustomed to; though to be fair, the new Resistance base was far less crowded. Yet, even that didn't feel quite as empty as it did in Jakku.

She got off of the ship with Chewie by her side. He had a blaster loaded and he was ready to go in case worse came to worse. No matter how much she wanted to see the best in Kylo, he was still Kylo Ren, and she had every right to have suspicions. Even the planet that he'd chosen for them to meet on was odd, if not suspect.

Rey walked past the junkyard of materials she used to study, following her feet as they led the way. The path was ingrained in her brain, well-worn by her adventures in scavenging and trying to make a home for herself. The sun beat down, and Rey felt as if she had to drag her body along. She wasn't sure if she was imagining it, but her lips felt more cracked and dry after arriving in Jakku than they felt before. Still, she carried on until she reached the structure that she was most familiar with in the entire planet - the structure that served as her home. She couldn't explain how she felt Kylo's presence without seeing him, but she did.

She took a quick glance at Chewie, noting the blaster in his grasp. Without taking another second to be sentimental or even a moment to be worried, she entered. It was dustier than she'd left it, and nothing was in its proper place anymore. Everything she once owned was strewn about across the floor and it wouldn't have appeared to be due to the rather innocuous looking man sitting on the ground had she not already known of him and his temper. He was leaning against the wall with his knees pulled to his chest, as if he were trying to make himself as small as possible.

"You came," Kylo said, in a tone that suggested that he'd not expected her to.

"I'm true to my word," Rey said, leaning against the doorframe. "Why here?" She asked, motioning to the small home that she'd spent countless hours in.

"I've seen it before."

Rey wanted to ask what he meant, but figured that he'd probably seen it in a vision, not unlike how she'd seen Luke's island, and either way, it wasn't the time to start a conversation about this. Any matters that needed to be tended to could be tended to back on the Resistance base.

"Have you been here long?" She asked.

"Not really. Two days."

"Here the whole time?"

"No. I explored a bit, but I've been hiding here for the past day or so."

"Why hiding?"

"I killed someone."

Rey looked at Chewie, who was still pointing the blaster directly at Kylo. Rey held her hand out, looking intently at Kylo. "Hand it over," she said firmly. Chewie raised the blaster as Kylo pulled himself up from the dusty ground.

Kylo stared intently at Rey, but removed his lightsaber from his belt and handed the heavy weapon over to her. His strength in the Force along with the fact that he stood over a head taller than her meant that he was still potentially dangerous, yet he was decidedly less so without his weapon of choice.

"Who did you kill?" Rey asked immediately upon receiving his weapon.

"That bastard that thinks he can control what people eat based on the metal scraps they give him."

"You killed Unkar Plutt." It's more of a statement than a question, but it still received a shrug as a response. Rey tried to suppress a smile, but found herself unable to avoid showing her emotions. "I'm not encouraging this, but... I hated him."

"I can see why."

"Come on, before the ship gets stolen."

Kylo hadn't known much about Jakku before telling her to meet him here, but the little he had experienced of it made it easy for him to believe that a ship in decent, working condition might have been stolen if left for too long.

As he followed her back to the ship, she started talking, trying to make the walk back less quiet. "I can't believe you've been on Jakku for two days and changed life for everyone here as they knew it. So I take it you've eaten?" Rey found herself trying to ascertain the answer by analyzing how his body looked. He wasn't quite withering away, but he was noticeably thinner than she remembered him being.

"A half-portion yesterday."

"That's not a lot."

"It's enough."

Rey quickly realized that this was yet another conversation that would not be productive for either of them right now if she'd tried to argue with him.

The remainder of the walk back to the ship was silent, despite Rey's previous efforts.

Though when they got back to the ship, Kylo stopped in his tracks before even boarding it. "Is everything alright?" Rey asked.

"I haven't been on this ship for ages." The memories flooded his brain, along with the guilt that the memories would never be able to be recreated due to the loss of his father. "Leia really lets you fly this?"

Rey smiled. "Yeah, I mean I found it here in the first place."

Kylo found himself looking toward where the junkyard was, even though he couldn't see it with the amount of distance he'd walked since he'd last seen it. "Interesting..."

"Are you coming?" Rey asked him.

Kylo quickly turned back to look at her rather than staring off into space. "Yes," he said, following her into the ship. The memories of it that he had as a child and how it looked now lined up almost too perfectly. Nothing had changed. Yet it felt different somehow, and because of that feeling, he'd expected something to be unrecognizable.

He took a quick look around as Rey patiently waited for him to finish being sentimental. He stumbled into the co-pilot seat, a fact that upset Chewie. This was confirmed by a vocalization from the Wookiee that the two humans both understood perfectly. Rey gave him a look which effectively shut him up.

Kylo watched Rey's hands as they effortlessly used the controls to safely take off. He lifted his head to look out the window, waiting until they were safely in the sky and there was little chance of Rey changing her mind now. "Thank you..." he said. His voice was so soft that it if had been even slightly quieter it would not have been audible to Rey at all.

Rey nodded and gave him a smile. Her stomach felt like it was in several different knots, her anxiety about bringing one of the most hated men in the galaxy to the Resistance base was intense, but by the way Kylo's hands trembled she made the assumption that whatever anxiety she was feeling, Kylo was feeling it tenfold.

By this time, Chewie was far less on guard. He still didn't trust Kylo, but he didn't think he was going to hurt anyone right that second.

The hours spent in space seemed to make Rey only that much more peaceful and calm. It had given her time to think about what she would say and do. For Kylo, it wasn't quite as simple. Anything he thought he might say or do felt wrong, and only made him feel more apprehensive.

He found himself wanting to sleep or eat as Rey had gently suggested to him multiple times in their relatively short travel time so far, but neither of those options seemed plausible for him. He wasn't comfortable enough to sleep, and eating without it being absolutely necessary was such a waste of energy that could be put to much better use. He found himself watching Rey as she ate, despite his best efforts to avoid watching her.

The dull ache of his stomach seemed to come in waves, and when the urge to eat struck him, he tried to convince himself he felt too anxious to eat, and that Rey deserved nourishment more than he did. That's why she gets to eat and he doesn't.

Nevermind Rey's incessant offers of food. Only when Kylo began to get angry did she stop offering, allowing the rest of the flight back to remain silent. If nothing else, it would keep the both of them sane and free of further conflict.

As the distance between the ship and the Resistance base grew smaller, Rey began to worry more and more about who would greet her, who would be the first to find out what she had actually done.

She refused to show her worry, though. She knew Kylo had it worse than she did and he had to take priority right now.

"Almost there," she said matter-of-factly.

When she landed the ship, she dismissed Chewie, allowing him to freely walk the Resistance base. He did so, but stayed nearby, just in case something were to happen.

"Will you be okay?" Rey asked.

"I feel that she's here."

"Yeah?" Rey asked softly.

"She knows I'm here. I don't know how to face her."

"If it makes you feel better, I don't either," Rey said.

"What am I supposed to do, apologize for killing my- for killing Han Solo and expect forgiveness?" Kylo asked sardonically, completely dismissing Rey's fears.

"I don't think you'll have to say anything, Ben. It will be okay." Kylo didn't react, instead, his expression seemed to grow even more sullen. "When you're ready to get off the ship, let me know."

Kylo nodded, choosing to take a few minutes to breathe before letting Rey know he was ready to get off.

She walked in front of him, checking every few steps to make sure he was still following her as they slowly got off the ship. Rey had become exceptionally close to Poe and Rose over the past few months. So along with Finn, they acted as her welcoming committee.

Though when Finn caught sight of the man following closely behind her, he dashed away. Kylo smiled in amusement as he watched Finn run away in terror. Rose rolled her eyes and begrudgingly followed in Finn's direction at a much slower pace.

Poe, however, was much less fearful. "You brought Kylo Ren here," he said. "You brought the Supreme Leader of the First Order... here."

"Former Supreme Leader," Rey corrected as if it mattered at all.

"Oh, okay. Well in that case..." Poe said sarcastically. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"I can hear you," Kylo said.

"It wasn't a private conversation," Poe said. "Did you tell Leia?"

"Not exactly," Rey said.

"That's going to be a really fun one to explain," Poe said.

"Somehow," Rey started, turning to look at Kylo, "I think I'll be fine."

"I hope so," Poe said, sizing up Kylo with his eyes, though his expression softened quickly as he did so. "Are you going to be okay."

"I've survived this far, we'll be okay."

Rey led Kylo away from Poe. "These are your friends," Kylo said, unimpressed.

"They're normally not like that," Rey said. "Actually, they are. They'll come around though. You did almost kill Finn. And Poe is very protective of Leia."

"Who's the other girl?"

"That's Rose. She's really close with Finn," Rey said. "Are you hungry? Tired?"

"No."

Rey eyed him suspiciously, but didn't call him out on it. "If you're sure, then I'm taking you to the med-bay."

"Now?"

"That is what you agreed to."

Even though he didn't want to go to the med-bay, he had, in his moment of desperation, agreed to it. Rey walked him down to the med-bay with a grip on his sleeve, as if it was the only thing that kept him from bolting. It was quite the opposite though, Kylo was quiet and compliant. Rey tried to get into his head, but his thoughts were as absent as his words. Something inside of him was completely dead at this point.

Rey had warned Kalonia in advance that she was bringing someone to get looked at but failed to tell her who she was bringing, much less what she feared might be wrong with him.

So when Rey brought Kylo Ren to her without a way to properly introduce him; she said nothing, just looked from Kylo back to Kalonia, hoping that she wouldn't be too freaked out. Dr. Kalonia was anything but freaked out. She had tended to Leia while she was pregnant with him. She was there when he was born. She'd tended to his injuries from playing as a child, and she'd done everything she could to help Han and Leia help him control his bursts of anger as a teenager, but she wasn't a therapist, and there was only so much she could do. To say she was freaked out would be incorrect. Stunned felt much more accurate.

"If you don't want to look at me, it's okay. I would not blame you." Kylo said, secretly hoping that he could get out of it entirely.

"Ben," Rey said firmly.

"No, you're fine, come on..." Kalonia took him back, giving Rey a bemused look before turning her attention to Kylo. "First we'll need to get a height and weight." Rey saw him take off his cape before she left him alone with the doctor to give him some privacy. She figured that if Kylo was going to do something drastic and dangerous, he would have impulsively done it by now. She didn't want to leave him by himself on the Resistance base after only having been there for under an hour, so she didn't wander too far.

Very little time had passed when Leia found Rey right outside the med-bay, pacing. "You brought him here," she said, immediately garnering the young woman's attention.

Leia didn't seem shocked or even angry, but she stood by her words.

"I'm sorry I told you differently," Rey said. "If I'd told you the truth you never would have given me the okay to bring him here."

"Nevermind that, where is he now?"

Rey nodded in his general direction, though Leia still wouldn't be able to see him behind the walls. "Med-bay. I told him he had to get looked at to stay here."

"Is he armed?"

"Only with the Force. I'm afraid I can't confiscate that too," Rey said with a nervous smile. Leia beamed at Rey, full of a sense of hope that she hadn't felt in ages.

"I'll wait with you."

Dr. Kalonia furrowed her brow upon seeing Kylo's weight. Kylo wondered if it was truly as bad as her expression made it out to be. Part of him was hoping it would be that bad, yet another part of him wanted it to be written off as something other than what it was, so he could keep this up for as long as possible without being detected.

Kylo continued his quiet and compliant act as his heart rate and blood pressure were checked, only to be angered as soon as she said a word.

"Do they feed you in The First Order?" She wasn't being rude or even remotely sarcastic, instead, her tone conveyed concern.

"They do. They feed us well," Kylo spat incredulously, ignoring all traces of kindness in her expression. He was sure Hux wasn't starving. Positive. Everyone from the highest rank to the lowest were all fed properly. The kitchen was stocked with extra food at all times for those who needed more energy in a day than the meals themselves provided.

"Well, your vitals are worse than a scavenger's."

"Oh..." Kylo said, suddenly feeling a bit of embarrassment about his current state.

"Are you eating okay?" Kalonia tried asking the question in another way, one that seemed to offend Kylo just as much.

"Probably not if my vitals are worse than a scavenger's," he said sarcastically.

"Do you feel okay physically? Any dizziness or fainting spells?"

"I feel dizzy when I stand up. I've passed out a few times, mostly when training too hard."

Kalonia took another step closer to finding the answer she was seeking. "Do you feel anxious around food?"

"Yes," Kylo said, sounding much like he did as a pissed off adolescent. "Even thinking about it makes me feel unsettled."

"Are you worried about your weight?" Dr. Kalonia asked.

"It's not something I concern myself with," Kylo said dismissively, before reluctantly forcing himself to give another answer. "I check every morning to make sure I'm not bigger than the day before."

"You are a few kilograms underweight, which isn't the end of the world, but I'm concerned because you will most likely need to gain a bit of weight to get your vitals back to a normal level and-"

"I'm not going to gain weight."

"Exactly. I'm not qualified to give you advice on how to handle your specific eating disturbance but-"

"What?" Kylo interrupted yet again.

"I think you have an eating disturbance. It's an illness. It's mostly in your brain, but there are physical side effects that can be very dangerous. There's only so much I can do to help your body heal if you aren't eating well, what's most important right now is that we try to get help for your brain."

Kylo had heard this 'help for your brain' speech before. He'd seen psytechs on the First Order. They made sure stormtroopers were conforming to the strict standard they were required to uphold. It was hell trying to make sure each and every stormtrooper was free from signs of unconformity after FN-2187's rebellion. "I don't need to be brainwashed. I am fine without help for my brain, thank you very much."

"I'm not sure how things are handled in the First Order, but there are people that are willing to help you, not brainwash you."

"I don't need someone to help me!" Kylo felt rage building up and went to grab his lightsaber and maybe throw it at a wall or something, only to remember that Rey had it, quickly putting him back in his place, though the anger was still raging inside of him.

"Just know that this sickness starts in your brain, and it can alter your thinking pattern and convince you that you don't need help. It's being heavily researched. They aren't very common nowadays, but eating disturbances are nothing to be ashamed of."

"This has happened to others?" Kylo asked, suddenly seeming a lot less angry. It felt better to know that his case was not entirely unique; though it wasn't something he would ever wish for anyone else to experience.

"Yes. I can give you something to read on it."

Kylo shook his head. "No, it's okay." He took a few seconds to breathe, before looking intently at Dr. Kalonia. "Don't tell Rey," Kylo warned.

"I won't, that's not my place. I only strongly recommend that you see someone so that you can learn to regain health back. Since most of our base has been wiped out, you'd need to travel a bit for it. If you're not ready to do that yet, I suggest telling someone that you trust. Maybe someone that has an idea something's wrong already..."

Of course, she would be trying to convince him to tell Rey. Rey already knew. Just maybe not that this had been his own doing.

"I'll take it into consideration," Kylo said, with no intention of actually considering it.

"Please do. And please, if you ever have a fainting spell again, come see me."

"Sure," Kylo said, with no intention of following through if the situation arose. He stood up, gripping the back of the chair he had been sitting in as he waited for his vision to go from black and blurry back to normal. He knew how it had to have looked to Kalonia, but chose not to worry about it.

Neither of them made any mention of it. "Are we done here?" Kylo asked.

"Sure."

Kylo turned and walked out, expecting to find Rey, which he did. He just wasn't also expecting his mother to be there.

"Ben," she said in a short breath. She hadn't seen him in ages, but she would recognize the face of her son anywhere. A scar marred his face, yet somehow didn't detract from his appearance. He was much taller and thinner than she remembered, and he was tall and thin before, so that was saying something.

Kylo decided right then and there that while he found he quite liked the sound of his birth name, Rey and Leia were the only people allowed to use it.

"I'm sorry," he said with a quiver in his voice. Rey took a step back, trying to take her leave to let mother and son have more privacy, but Kylo sensed it instantly without having to look and felt immensely less safe without her right beside him. He dropped to his knees, knowing he'd seem less intimidating while not towering over his mother. "I'm sorry for everything."

He waited for her to say something, anything, before he had to go into a whole lecture about how if he had never been born in the first place that it would have been so much easier for all of them and that if she killed him now he wouldn't even mind, but he felt like she probably knew all of that without him having to say it.

"I'm just glad you're here now, Ben."

"Me too."

It was less dramatic than any of them could have expected, so much so, that Rey managed to slip out without Kylo even caring. She stayed nearby though. Near enough that she could step in if something were to go wrong. Kylo's docile attitude was not his typical demeanor, and she didn't trust it entirely.

Leia, by this point, had taken a seat on the floor, across from her son.

The weight of every sin Kylo had committed felt heavy on his chest, and the guilt seeped into his stomach, making him glad it had been over a day since he'd last eaten. "If it makes you feel any better, I've been punishing myself for everything I've done. It's not enough, but..." he shakes his head, unable to complete his thought or even look her in the eye.

"Why would that make me feel better?" She asked, horrified that he would say that.

Kylo looked up, feeling even more guilt now that he was face to face with someone he'd hurt immensely. "Because it's what I deserve."

As hard as Leia tried, she couldn't quite come up with an argument against that, because it was true. Yet, by how fragile he seemed both physically and emotionally, it was clear that he had suffered enough. This suffering needed to be laid to rest so that its host could live again. Behind her son's eyes was a kind of sadness that was far more intense than anything Leia had seen before.

She wanted to wrap her arms around him and fully embrace him like she had when he was a child, but it had been so long, and he seemed so distant despite the relative physical closeness they shared.

If she so much as touched him, she felt like she could shatter his bones and that this could be the end of him.

There was too much darkness in him, but it wasn't the kind of darkness that he could use for power and strength.

Instead, this was a kind of darkness that he was powerless against; he felt himself sinking in it like quicksand. He wondered how long it would be before he completely drowned in it.


	4. Chapter 4

It was strange for Leia to finally see her son as an adult, yet it was as if nothing had changed. She'd hoped by this time in his life that he would have finally found peace within himself, but she could tell just by observing him that his mental state wasn't any better than it was the last time she'd seen him. If anything, it was far worse.

The scar on his face only highlighted the prominence of his cheekbones, briefly causing her to wonder if Snoke had withheld nourishment from him before he took over as Supreme Leader. The bags under his eyes reflected his unmistakable exhaustion. The look in his eyes was that of complete hopelessness, like he'd expected that she would reject him at any moment and was prepared in advance for when the moment arrived. Every fiber of Leia's being wanted to brush his hair out of his face with her fingers and tell him that what he really deserved right now was rest; yet she restrained herself. He wouldn't believe her now, but maybe someday he would.

So she had to wait and let him begin to trust her on his own terms, and she would have to do the same with him.

She hadn't expected him to even want to see her again. She'd failed him, after all. She hadn't really listened to him when he was young and complained of feelings of sadness or anger. When the rage grew so strong that things were broken from flying off shelves, she became scared of him. Back then, she feared that he was beyond the level of assistance she could provide him. She wished she could say that she tried, but she didn't. She hid her own fear behind her seemingly helpful idea of sending him to Luke.

Even worse, neither she nor her husband ever asked their son how they could help him, they'd simply dismissed him and sent him away when things had become difficult.

She'd completely failed him then; she wasn't going to fail him a second time.

"What do you need right now, Ben?" Leia asked, allowing her concern and love to come out a bit less like a simultaneously overjoyed and terrified mother and much more like she was trying to make a houseguest comfortable.

"I don't need anything," Kylo stuttered, struggling to process his mother's kindness.

"Did you bring anything with you?"

Kylo shook his head and hesitated before telling her the reason why. "I didn't want them to be able to track me with anything."

Leia nodded. "Of course. That makes sense. Come on, I'll help get you settled."

Kylo's eyes narrowed in bewilderment. "You don't have to do anything for me," Kylo tried again to refuse her help.

"I want to. I want to make sure that you are safe and comfortable here," Leia got up from the ground, and Kylo followed suit. "We don't have much," Leia said in an apologetic manner, "but we'll make it work."

Instead of hearing that they would make it work, Kylo only seemed to hear that they didn't have a lot. If that wasn't a great excuse to latch onto to justify his odd eating habits, he wasn't sure what would be.

"I don't want to inconvenience you more than I have."

"Ben, stop. I want you here. You're not an inconvenience."

"I'm not?" Kylo asked, full of uncertainty.

"No, and I don't want you to think that way. Let me help you get you settled."

Despite his guilt over having her help him, he accepted the help anyway.

Leia secured a bed for him in a currently unoccupied private room for his own safety, and put fresh bed sheets on it without soliciting her son's help. Not that she would have let him help her. She hadn't acted as his mother for years, and she wanted to make up for it by playing the part now. Leia left him in the room by himself as she went off to procure other items, which was a relief to him.

Although the room was small, roughly the size of Kylo's closet back on the First Order, the room didn't feel cramped to him. He felt safer there than he did in an open area of the Resistance base where someone who didn't like him could appear at any moment and find him.

After all, being at the Resistance base did not automatically make him part of the Resistance and he wasn't ready to try to convince anyone that he had no intention of hurting them. He figured he'd either scare people like he scared the rebellious stormtrooper that Rey calls her friend or he'd incite anger just by existing and be shot with a blaster before he could stop it. More than that, if he happened to be shot he wasn't convinced that he had the mental strength to stifle the bleeding by means of the Force for long enough to get back to the med-bay to have it stitched.

In fact, Kylo's focus was so poor that he didn't realize his mother had returned to the room when she opened the door. It took her actually starting to speak for his head to jerk back to the doorway in a quick movement that signaled his sudden awareness of her presence.

"You might be a little too tall for these but it's all I have right now," Leia said, handing her son a small stack of folded clothes. "We'll work on getting you some better-fitting garments as soon as we can." Kylo took the clothes from her and ran his hands along the fabric, finding the softness comforting.

He didn't know if there was anything to say to express his gratitude without becoming a puddle of tears. He'd shed more than a few tears over the past few days, but if he could suppress the complete breakdown for long enough to preserve some of his dignity and not seem weak, he had to do it.

Leia spoke up again, "I know this isn't what you're used to."

"It's not," Kylo said.

"We don't have a whole lot so-" Leia started to explain.

"I know," Kylo said. "It's fine. It's my doing anyway."

Leia couldn't tell him that it wasn't his fault. It was, at least in part. She also couldn't tell him that it was okay. It wasn't.

"Let's not worry about it right now," she said.

"Does Rey still have my lightsaber?" Kylo asked.

"I think so. Why?"

"It would make me feel safer if I had it," Kylo said, doubting that it would be returned to him no matter how politely he asked for it.

"How so?" Leia asked.

"Everyone here hates me. I don't want to be left unarmed."

"You'll be okay. No one else will be in here, and I will talk to the others to make sure that you are safe. We can renegotiate this later, but for now..." Leia trailed off.

Kylo couldn't quite hide his disappointment, but didn't feel like he had to.

"Okay," Kylo said. "I should try to sleep."

"Are you sure you just want to sleep? No dinner or anything?"

"It's been a long day," Kylo said. He briefly thought about mentioning having eaten on the ship, but didn't want his mother and Rey to conspire and figure out that he was lying.

"I'm sure it has. Coming here was very brave, you know; I'm proud of you."

"Thank you... for everything." Kylo's voice broke on the last word and he mentally cursed himself for saying something remotely emotional.

"It's really no trouble at all. I'm just glad you're here," Leia said. "I love you."

She left him alone in the room, not expecting a response back. Kylo watched the door slowly close on him, and he immediately went to lock it before sitting down on the floor, leaning against the wall.

The events of the day replayed over and over again in his head. Rey took such a chance on him, and he was scared to death that he was going to let her down. His mother welcomed him with open arms and seemed unhappy to learn that Kylo was punishing himself, though he couldn't quite understand why. He hadn't described his methods; she would assume whatever she wanted whether he wanted her to or not.

Self-punishment was the only way he could convince himself he deserved to be here. If he'd let his actions go unpunished, that would be saying that he thought his actions were acceptable and that he was worth something. He knew that he was completely worthless, and so he treated himself as such.

Yet at the same time, after everything, Rey thought he was worth rescuing and he didn't want to prove her wrong.

Kylo rocked himself back and forth to deal with the anxiety as he absentmindedly let his hand drift under his shirt and find his skin. The touch of his bare hands felt cold against his abdomen. He dug his fingernails into his flesh, going deeper and deeper until he couldn't do it it anymore. He looked at the crescent-shaped marks left behind and quickly decided it wasn't bad enough. He repeated the action again and again until it finally looked bad enough to satisfy him and the physical pain had completely overshadowed the emotional pain.

He'd seen stormtroopers succumb to alcohol and seen people being mended by medical droids request much more pain medicine than they actually needed. This was very innocuous by comparison; it was a far cheaper form of escapism that didn't seem to come along with the negative side effects than some of the other methods that he'd seen used by others. He would cause himself pain intentionally sometimes, he'd done so for a long time, but the occurrences were never as high in the past as they were now.

With a few new injuries safely hidden under the fabric of his clothing, he felt a little bit better, calmer.

Kylo crawled into the single-person bed. The sheets smelled like his childhood. If he concentrated hard enough he could remember what it was like when he was younger, long before Kylo Ren had ever been invented. No matter how hungry, stressed, and uncomfortable he felt, he found that his eyes felt heavy and he struggled to keep them open, even though sleep hardly came easily. After you wake up to almost having been killed in your sleep, you find yourself a little bit distrustful of everyone.

His only comfort was that Rey had brought him here. They respected her, at least he assumed they did. He didn't think Rey would have brought him here to kill him, but how much did it matter? No matter how much he tried to ignore this fact, Kylo had come here knowing that dying was a distinct possibility if he couldn't get a grip on his eating habits.

* * *

After leaving her son in his room, Leia pinched herself on the hand, hoping that she wouldn't wake up in a version of the universe where her son was still Kylo Ren and she still had to pretend she didn't love him at all.

She didn't awaken though, because she hadn't been dreaming this at all. She sighed in relief and smiled to herself as she went off to find the girl who had brought him here. It was well-past the peak traffic time in the kitchen. Leia would occasionally find Rey and Finn sitting on the kitchen floor talking and laughing at late hours. It was a nightly occurrence from what she had gathered. Others would sometimes be present, but half the time it would just be the two of them.

Given the unique events of the day, Leia knew what the topic of conversation would be. She typically didn't feel a need to eavesdrop, but this time, she at least needed to make sure her son would be safe. She rested her body weight on the doorframe, trying to find the proper break in the conversation to step in and speak to Rey.

"He asked to be here?" Finn asked.

"Yeah. I'm not sure why but he did."

"Don't you think that's a little sketchy?"

"I don't think so," Rey said.

"You don't? See the thing is, now that he's here, we need to make sure he stays here. Otherwise he's just going to go back to the First Order, and now he's gonna know where our base is and he'll probably have a way to track us..."

"I know, I know. I don't think he'll try to leave. He seemed really genuine about coming here, desperate even."

"You think he's that bad off?" Finn asked after a pause in the conversation.

"Hard to tell. He seems really anxious right now."

"Can't say I blame him," Finn said.

"Me either," Rey said.

Leia finally made herself known by entering the kitchen. "Rey," she said in a warning tone, causing the younger girl to immediately freeze and stand up. "Have I told you I love you lately?" Leia asked, embracing her in a hug.

"You haven't," Rey smiled at Leia as she pulled out of the hug.

"Well, I love you, but you have some explaining to do," Leia said with a smile that signaled that she wasn't mad at all.

Rey hesitated. "How much of our conversation did you hear?"

"Not much, I've only been standing here for a minute or so."

Rey sighed softly. "I was getting worried about him, and he wanted to be here, so I went and got him... There's not much more to explain."

"Where did you get him?"

"Jakku."

"Why Jakku?"

"That's a question for him, not me. I didn't pick it."

"Okay. At least it wasn't the First Order base or anything."

"No. Not this time at least," Rey shook her head at her own stupidity, remembering the time she'd taken an escape pod to ship herself to Kylo Ren in a moment of absurd hopefulness that she could turn him singlehandedly. Even now, she believed that he would turn, but understood that it wasn't going to be as simple as standing next to him and holding his hand.

"You risked a lot to do this. I'm so glad you brought him here but please don't pull anything like this again."

"I won't," Rey said with a smile. "Where is he now?"

"Sleeping."

"He's by himself?" Rey asked with a hint of concern in her voice.

"He is," Leia hesitated to say, before going on to justify the reason why. "I want him to be as comfortable as possible here. I'm not about to risk losing him again."

Rey had been in the kitchen for long enough to know that Kylo hadn't come in to eat anything, and was now presumably out for the night and she wouldn't see him until after the sun had come up again.

"He hasn't eaten, has he?" Rey asked, knowing the answer already.

Leia shook her head. "He said he was too tired," she shrugged when she said it, as if it were a non-issue. "You've had a long day too, girl, you should head to bed too."

"I will, soon," Rey said softly.

Even though she didn't say it, she found it frustrating that he hadn't had anything to eat for over a day and he was continuing to push it further for no discernable reason.

He'd gone through a lot recently; she knew he was probably stressed out of his mind, and that the stress might affect his appetite. She decided that she would try to offer him food in the morning and if he willingly ate she would stop worrying about it.

* * *

When the sun rose in the morning, the day was anything but ordinary and routine. An ordinary day would have seen fun and laughter in the kitchen, as the group would have made and eaten breakfast together. Only a handful of people seemed to actually have the appetite for breakfast that day.

It was quiet. There were sounds of tapping feet, barely audible whispers, and the clinking of silverware from the ones who were able to eat. People uneasily peered over their shoulders as if to make sure they weren't finding someone unwanted behind them. Poe Dameron wasn't as uneasy as some, but still found himself irritated by the morale.

He'd not told a soul about the unexpected visitor that Rey had brought with her, assuming either Finn or Rose had mentioned it – his gut told him if anyone, it was most likely Finn, though he didn't quite have proof to back it up.

He had to talk to Leia. Something had to be done about this situation to at least bring morale back up in the base. One way or another, it had to happen. This was not a productive state for the small band of Resistance members to be in, and Leia had to know it.

"Kylo Ren's here." He was sure that she knew that, but it was the first thing he said to her when he saw her.

"I know. I was going to talk to you about this," Leia said. She knew that her son's biggest threat in the Resistance was Poe. Poe hated Kylo Ren's guts, looked up to Leia, and had just enough reckless impulsivity to do something to harm him while erroneously thinking he was doing the right thing. "I didn't authorize this for the record, but he's here now, so please treat him with respect and understanding. He needs it."

Poe's eyes widened, and he leaned forward to try to analyze Leia's face. "What the hell happened?" His tone was more frustrated than curious. Leia might have been frustrated and tried to put Poe in his place had she not completely understood why he was so worried.

"You know that son that I lost? Ben?"

Poe hesitated. "Yeah... did Kylo Ren kill him?"

"In a sense. Snoke was trying to tempt Ben while he was training to be a Jedi. Ben couldn't listen to both masters, and he chose the path of darkness rather than light... but I think he's making his way back."

Poe stared at Leia blankly for a minute, he narrowed his eyes as the realization dawned on him. "Kylo Ren is your son?" Poe asked.

"Yes."

Poe shook his head in disbelief. "Are you for real?"

"I am for real."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"I didn't want anyone to have to hesitate when going up against the First Order. I was already hesitating enough myself."

Poe sighed. "That's smart, I guess..."

"I know that you're concerned, I completely understand that, but he is unarmed, for now at least. And he doesn't appear to want to cause any harm."

"He doesn't appear to want to cause any harm," Poe muttered under his breath loudly enough for Leia to hear him. Poe still looked conflicted, but didn't press the issue further. He wanted to trust her, and he knew he wouldn't be showing her that he trusted her by continuing to question her after she'd made a decision.

He'd always assumed that Leia had a son that died. He knew that Leia had experienced a tragedy a while ago; plus, it was common knowledge in the Resistance that she had a son at one point. She mentioned him on occasion, but said that he was gone. Death was the conclusion that everyone had come to based on how she talked about him, although no one really asked. It would be in poor taste to ask a mother who's lost a child how her child died.

You just listen to what she has to say and support her how you can.

Poe thought he was always ready for anything. But he hadn't been ready for this. Ben Solo was supposed to be a kind young man that loved the galaxy and people and was training with his uncle to be a Jedi when tragedy struck. Kylo Ren was a prominent figure in the First Order and killed people frequently and without remorse. Kylo Ren was a threat. Yet, he was supposed to believe that Ben Solo was not, as if nomenclature made a difference.

"I'll come back and talk to you, but it's gonna take time for me to, you know, process this..." Poe said.

Leia nodded once, in effect, giving him permission to do so.

He turned on his heel and started walking in the opposite direction. He'd already failed at treating the Former Supreme Leader of the First Order with respect and understanding, but could anyone truly blame him? He assumed Kylo Ren's mother could apparently blame him. Ben's mother, he reminded himself.

The least he could do was acknowledge him as Ben instead of Kylo Ren, though he wasn't quite sure what the man was. He didn't think Kylo Ren would descend back to the Resistance that easily, yet he didn't think that the Kylo Ren he'd remembered wanting to destroy one day would actually end up at the Resistance base for any reason other than to destroy them. Maybe he was caught between both identities and didn't know who he was either, maybe he was a different person entirely. Poe found himself becoming more confused by trying to figure it out.

He hadn't quite processed the information yet, but he would work on it. It was important to Leia, so it was important to him. A deep sense of loss permeated his mind, it would be hard to explain, so it was a good thing he wouldn't dare to speak about it. He felt like he was about to lose a second mother and there was nothing he could do to prevent it from happening now. He wouldn't be nearly as important to Leia now that her real son had come back from the dead.

* * *

When Kylo woke up, it took him a moment to analyze his surroundings before he realized where he was.

He recalled the previous day in bits and pieces and recalled none of the subconscious thoughts that he'd dreamt during the night.

Kylo put his hands around one of his thighs out of pure habit; he was unable to wrap his hands around it entirely, but he was getting there. At the very least, it was not bigger than it was the previous day. He completed the same test on his other thigh before moving on to check the prominence of his hip bones. They were still covered in flesh but he could feel them, which was enough.

He ran his hands along his ribcage without sucking in. He stopped short of reaching his stomach. The skin between his hip bones and his ribcage had become his own personal canvas of destruction. He tried not to irritate the area unless he was performing an act of said destruction. Even the seemingly simple movement of sucking his stomach in would irritate the injuries there. That was something he would do anyway; the way it made his ribcage look was worth the pain that it caused.

He moved on to his collarbones, noted no difference whatsoever, and then finally reached his arms, the last place on his self-imposed mandatory body check. He checked that by wrapping his opposite hand on various places on his arm, starting just under his shoulders and ending at his wrist. The only difference he really noticed there was that his wrist bone had made its appearance. He didn't even know that there were bones there until they started protruding from his body.

Focusing so much attention on becoming smaller and being less was not something he'd ever expected to happen. There was a time in his life that he wanted to be bigger and stronger.

Part of him still wanted that, wanted to occupy the body that he did before he started doing this. But the other part of him told him to keep going, that stopping this due to a little bit of discomfort would be a sign of weakness.

Sometimes he didn't know which part of himself to listen to, but found that in the end, he came to the same conclusion anyway - he would listen to the part of him that screamed louder.

Hearing the fact that he was underweight the day before was a very welcome piece of information. He hadn't been striving for any particular number, nor had he even been weighing himself throughout this process. He knew what weight he was when he started, and he couldn't imagine ever being that heavy again. He couldn't remember what it was like to have an appropriate amount of fat and muscle that made everyday tasks easy enough to do without thinking.

He groaned to himself when he heard a knock at his door because even getting out of bed had become increasingly more difficult of a task. He hardly had energy to spare, and his body eating away at his muscle to try to get the sustenance that he needed to go about his daily life wasn't helping the situation.

Plus, he didn't want to leave the comfort of his bed and be exposed to the temperate air. If everyone else found it mild, he was shivering.

He was cold and out of breath by the time he finally dragged himself out of bed, but he'd done it anyway. Accomplishments were few and far between, and he considered this to be one.

He reached for the door handle, remembered to unlock it, then slowly opened it with a bit of hesitation. The sun was shining in, and Kylo squinted to see what was happening. This was never quite an issue on the ever-mobile base of the First Order.

"Good morning." Kylo felt a rush of relief upon hearing the voice and seeing the face of the girl that had brought him here. "I was wondering when you'd be up," Rey said.

Kylo didn't really know how to say that he'd been up for probably an hour yet spent a lot of time making sure he hadn't gained weight after the previous day of not eating at all, so the best response was none at all.

"Your mom has already talked to some people about you being here, so you should be completely safe."

"Really?"

"Well… I'm not sure how happy everyone is about it, but no one will hurt you."

"Oh," Kylo responded.

"If you want to come eat breakfast, the-"

"I'm not a breakfast person," Kylo interrupted. Rey looked him in the eyes intently, his demeanor was dead serious, but Rey sensed his intense anxiety.

"Not a breakfast person, huh?" Rey folded her arms over her chest.

"Never have been."

Rey bit her bottom lip and shook her head at him. "That's bull."

"Is it?" Kylo asked, giving her a chance to change her response.

"Yeah, it is," Rey confirmed. "You're allowed to eat, you know. I don't want you to feel guilty for taking what you need."

He would feel guilty. Though maybe not for the reasons she would have expected.

"Leia said that you guys don't have much here," Kylo said.

"We don't have a whole lot when it comes to space, that is true. But we have an abundance of food," Rey said.

"An abundance?" Kylo asked.

"I don't know how much food you're used to having, but it's a lot to me."

He'd been to the planet Rey had done most of her growing up on, and he knew the meager rations of food she was accustomed to surviving on for most of her life. Of course having an adequate amount of food looked like an abundance to her. She no longer had to go hungry.

Based on her past and the fact that Rey was stubborn as hell, Kylo figured she would probably quickly start counting days he would go without eating as Hux had done back on the First Order base. She was already unraveling him much faster than he anticipated. He would simply have to learn new ways to make sure that he wasn't eating enough to prevent further weight loss, yet somehow convince her and everyone else that he was fine.

"Okay," Kylo said, allowing Rey to take his hand, in effect agreeing to eat. His anxiety was stifled by the first physical contact that he'd had with anyone in months. Rey's skin was warm against his own, causing Kylo to become much more aware of how cold he truly felt. If Rey had even acknowledged the temperature of Kylo's hands, she didn't find it appropriate to mention it.

The touch made him feel more human, more engaged. She was challenging him by coaxing him to do something he was clearly terrified to do and he was trusting her by allowing her to lead him across the base while being careful not to break the skin-to-skin contact. Kylo wondered if this was what love would feel like if he happened to be lucky enough to find it.

Touch wasn't something he'd experienced often in the First Order. Snoke had, on occasion, touched Kylo's face with his scaly hand to wipe tears out of his eyes mockingly. It was Snoke's way of showing contempt for Kylo Ren's emotional instability, or maybe the fact that Kylo had emotions at all.

Needless to say, on the rare instance that Kylo experienced physical contact back on the First Order, it wasn't pleasant.

Yet holding Rey's hand and simply knowing she was there was probably one of the most pleasant things he'd experienced in years.

Kylo knew two things for sure: First, he needed to get back in the habit of constantly drinking water to stay full; second, with Rey getting on his case, he absolutely had to eat.


	5. Chapter 5

Rey pondered over what could have been going on in Kylo's head. She'd never seen anyone eat in such a ritualistic manner as he was displaying in front of her. It seemed to hinder any enjoyment he could possibly find from eating. She had made previous attempts to engage him in conversation, but he only gave short responses if he gave a response at all; so she took the hint and kept quiet. She'd never seen him eat before now, so if he usually refused conversation at mealtimes in order to eat in such a methodical way, she wasn't quite sure.

Kylo slowly ripped the bread he was eating, causing the already bite-sized pieces to become even smaller before he deemed them safe enough to put in his mouth. He took sips of water between each tiny mouthful of food. The chill of the glass of water was causing his already cold fingers to become more and more numb as the time he spent eating dragged on.

Although she tried to hide it, out of the corner of Kylo's eye he could see that Rey was eyeing him with suspicion; yet, he also knew that as long as he was eating, she likely wouldn't dare to say anything about _how_ he was doing it.

The simple act of food consumption only made the hunger pangs that much stronger. If Rey hadn't been with him he might have felt tempted to completely raid the kitchen and eat everything he could get his hands on. After all, if anyone who wasn't Rey or his mother was in the kitchen they would exit the room as soon as they noticed his presence. That much had been confirmed, because it had happened when he walked in with Rey.

Though maybe it would be good if he was caught eating everything in sight. Maybe word would travel back to Kalonia and she wouldn't have to worry about him anymore. And then he would have a reference to point to if he needed to prove that he didn't have a problem with food. But wanting to eat in excess was one thing; doing it was another. He knew that he would be unable to bring himself to do it, which was good, because he didn't know what he would do if he woke up the next day to find the fabric of his clothes feeling tight or finding his thighs even slightly bigger.

Rey attempted to keep her gaze fixed on the floor, but with each sigh Kylo let out and each gulp of water she saw him take in her peripheral vision, she found her attention back on him. He was acting so strangely and she didn't know why. She could slip into his consciousness and figure it out for herself; after all, it would be easy because she suspected Kylo was not mentally strong enough to fight her off. But she wanted him to be comfortable, and the way he was taking thirty minutes to eat the same amount of food that she had consumed in thirty seconds proved to her that he was anything but comfortable already.

Only if she became truly desperate would she invade his headspace.

As Kylo finished the last crumb of bread, he instantly regretted it. His stomach felt as if it was tying itself into knots and he knew that he would be unable to eat another slice of bread if it were offered to him. Rey caught the shaking of his hands out of the corner of her eye. "Are you okay?" She asked.

Kylo nodded without even sparing a second to look at her. "I'm fine," he replied with no inflection in his voice.

"Okay," Rey said, accepting his unwillingness to speak. "But if you're ever not fine, you can tell me, okay?"

Kylo turned his head to look at Rey, "Really?" He asked with uncertainty.

"Yes. Of course," Rey said.

"Thank you," Kylo mumbled. Kylo wasn't sure Rey would truly want to hear his tragic tale about why he was struggling to eat, nor was he sure he wanted to share it. He didn't plan to ever take her up on the offer, but knowing it was there counted for something.

Rey picked up his empty glass along with her own and took them into the kitchen, leaving him alone in the corridor for a brief moment. Kylo watched as she disappeared from his view, then he followed suit by standing up.

Kylo planted his hand on the wall to keep himself from falling over.

The irony of the fact that his legs had greater difficulty keeping him upright when there was less weight for them to carry was not lost on him. He understood why, but the thought still struck him as strange. The small amount of energy he'd taken in definitely helped his balance more than he wanted to admit.

Rey was taken aback slightly when she exited the kitchen; she had expected to be looking down rather than up.

"Rey?" Kylo asked before Rey had the chance to try to be nice and make small talk.

"Yeah?" Rey responded, hopefully.

"Can I have my lightsaber back?" Kylo asked.

Rey's face fell. "You know, I took it from you for a reason…"

"I know. But you saw how they walked out as soon as they saw me..."

"I know, I know…" Rey said with a sigh. "They'll like you once they get to know you," she added as if it were any comfort at all. "Plus, they're not allowed to so much as lay a hand on you. You'll be okay."

"And I'm supposed to trust that?"

Rey shrugged, "Yeah, I guess."

"Well, I don't," Kylo said.

"I've gathered."

"They clearly can't stand me here."

Rey had known just by looking at him how sad and dejected he was that the few Resistance members left in the kitchen had all shuffled out quite quickly after she had come into the kitchen with with him. "I know. But that wasn't exactly a threat."

"It wasn't a threat because I was with you. What if I wasn't?" Kylo asked.

Rey froze. She didn't think that anyone would go against Leia's orders and do anything to harm him, but now that he had brought it up, she wasn't quite sure if word had travelled to everyone yet.

A day hadn't been nearly long enough for anyone to get used to their former enemy being here.

It hadn't even been long enough for people to stop considering him their enemy.

"The same rule applies to you."

"What rule?"

"Don't hurt anyone."

"What if they attack me first?" Rey glanced at the scar on his face. She had attacked him on more than one occasion. That scar was her doing. Did that count as an attack?

"If it's really an attack… you need to defend yourself," Rey admitted despite her better judgment.

"So can I have it?" Kylo asked again. Rey had already basically said yes, but he needed the weapon now if he was going to be at all comfortable.

"Yes, but please don't hurt anyone unless absolutely necessary."

Kylo smirked. "I won't."

With some hesitation, she walked him to where it was. The sacred Jedi texts were located on a shelf on the Resistance base. They had been left to collect a bit of dust since the only time they had been touched since they were placed there was when Rey hid Kylo's lightsaber behind them. She knew if she had an interest in reading them and yet still hadn't, it was extremely unlikely that Kylo - or anyone else for that matter - would find them interesting enough to take a look and find the weapon.

Rey pulled out one of the books and brushed off some of the dust on the top of it, letting Kylo notice and pick up his lightsaber of his own accord.

Really, she wanted to be able to convince herself that Kylo had gotten his lightsaber himself and that she had not given it to him. At least this way she technically would not be lying to herself.

After all, she couldn't stand around and hold his hand and reassure him every moment of every day.

* * *

Poe had seen how the few members of the Resistance had quickly left the kitchen as Rey and Kylo had gone in.

Rey smiled at Poe and politely greeted him, but Kylo either hadn't noticed Poe or pretended to not notice him. He walked past with his head down and shoulders hunched. He appeared to be trying to seem as small as possible as to not intimidate anyone, yet he was still taller than everyone here and stuck out like a sore thumb based on that alone, not to mention the all-black attire that was not traditionally worn by Resistance members.

Kylo was holding onto Rey's hand as if he'd lose her forever if he let her go.

It was months ago that Kylo Ren had tortured Poe, invaded his mind without permission. It was physically and emotionally painful and degrading, and it was not something Poe was ready to forgive and forget. But somehow, the newcomer to the base didn't seem all that similar to the person that had tortured him what seemed so long before.

He was no longer a faceless, dented mask, but a human being. Poe saw humanity in how Kylo bonded with Rey, and he saw it even more when he began to recognize the features that Leia had passed onto him. Yet, it didn't quite mean he trusted him just because he had given up the mask. He appeared more human than metal without the mask, yes, but he was a human who had done terrible things that Poe would be well within his rights to not forgive him for.

"It's a lot to take in. It's weird," Poe told Leia when he'd finally come back to talk to her.

"What's weird?" Leia asked.

"Everything. The whole vibe here. Everyone is freaked out just because Ky- Ben is here. Like ten people walked out when he went into the kitchen this morning."

Leia sighed, clearly a bit disappointed. "It's an adjustment for sure. For some more than others…"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure." Poe confirmed that he understood who Leia was referring to. "I'm not sure what he expected would happen."

"I don't know," Leia said. "But whatever was going on there had to have been really bad if he wanted to come here to escape it."

Poe nodded, "Yeah. It's just scary... if they ever find out he's here with us this is going to get so much worse."

"If it does, I'm sure he has enough knowledge of the First Order to help us fight back."

Poe nodded, "You're right."

Leia smiled. "I know. But if he's going to help us, he needs to trust us."

"I don't know how to make that happen."

"Well, he trusts us more than he trusts the First Order," Leia said. "That's a start."

"He trusts you and Rey more than the First Order; he doesn't trust all of us."

"Well, he's not going to learn to trust people who won't even talk to him," Leia said, bringing the conversation back full-circle.

"Right. It would be cool if people wouldn't immediately leave a room when-" Poe interrupted himself, "I should probably talk to him."

"You probably should," Leia said, a small smirk playing across her lips.

Poe knew that he could find Kylo fairly easily. So he went off to try. All it took was finding another person and figuring out which area of the base they were avoiding. If he saw a fellow Resistance member he could be sure that Kylo Ren was not close by.

Though it only seemed fitting that Kylo would be with Rey, that clearly had not turned out to be the case. He found Rey sitting on the ground, eyes closed, books floating in the air surrounding her. Kylo was nowhere to be found, and Poe wouldn't dare to interrupt her connection to the Force for anything.

He quietly slipped out of the room and looked elsewhere until he ended up right where he'd last seen Kylo in the first place.

Of course, that's where he was, pacing the corridor leading to the kitchen, subconsciously starving the stubborn Resistance members just by being there. Kylo muttered numbers under his breath with every step he took. Poe assumed that a Force-sensitive person might have noticed his presence, but just as Rey had not reacted, neither did Kylo.

"Do you do this often?" Poe asked, pointing to Kylo's feet and quickly garnering the younger man's attention.

Kylo looked more rested than he had when he'd first arrived on the base. His hair was no longer a complete disaster and he didn't appear to be in any danger of keeling over at a moment's notice; but his jerky movements expressed his anxiety without him having to say it, and his methodical pacing and counting was a very odd habit at best, unsettling at worst.

"Lately," Kylo admitted, holding his head down to avoid having to maintain eye contact with Poe. Poe looked at Kylo's hair directly to avoid seeming worried, and to hopefully be able to look him in the eye if he ever happened to look up. When Kylo didn't look back up again, Poe quickly looked him over and noticed something very odd – Kylo had his lightsaber on his belt and his hand was slowly moving closer to it as if he was bracing himself for an attack.

Had Leia lied about him not being armed?

Poe took a deep breath to compose himself. "Listen, I know we don't have a good history," Poe started. "I mean, I've hated you, and I'm sure you're not overly fond of me."

Kylo raised his head a little bit but didn't say anything. The movement was enough to make Poe flinch.

Poe kept his eyes carefully on Kylo and his lightsaber until he was certain that he wasn't poised to attack, and then kept speaking. "But I don't want you to think that you only have two people on your side. Okay?"

"Okay..." Kylo dragged out, clearly confused by what Poe was saying.

Poe took a step back before he realized he was doing it, which didn't help him prove his point.

"I'm just trying to say that... if you need anything, or want someone to talk to or someone who just won't run away just because you exist..." Poe trailed off.

"You're interested... in talking to me?" Kylo asked slowly, carefully annunciating each word as he asked the question.

Poe was certain Kylo was mocking him, but he wasn't going to let Kylo embarrass him, so he shrugged. "It depends. Because I'm not really interested in having any further dealings with Kylo Ren."

Kylo finally looked up at Poe, unsure if he should be offended or not. But Poe wasn't angry at him, and Poe wasn't mocking him.

And then something clicked.

* * *

Ben sat in his room as the night was coming to an end. It hadn't been a bad first full day there, all things considered. Rey had been so patient with him, Poe had been remotely nice to him and in the process managed to make him completely rethink his life, and his mother had touched his hand and his face and reminded him that she loved him.

The positivity was completely overwhelmed by the negativity that he couldn't let go of by the end of the day. Ben doubted that he would be able to win over the others anytime soon, and he couldn't say he blamed anyone for being afraid of him. He was scared of himself sometimes too.

He held his lightsaber in his hand, fidgeting with it, but being very careful not to ignite it until he was ready.

When he was, he set it down beside him and removed the garments covering his torso one by one. He poked at his stomach, feeling disgusted with himself at letting Rey convince him to eat three times that day. He ran his hand along the marks he'd scratched into himself the day before.

He picked up his lightsaber again, turning it around in his hand a few times. He ignited it away from his body and admired its chaotic light. He drew it closer to his body, and an intrusive thought that he was used to having crept into his mind. It would be so easy to put the lightsaber through his chest and end it.

He shook his head quickly as to rid himself of the thought.

He needed to punish himself, but he did not need to go as far as actually killing himself.

He held one of the cross guards close to his stomach. Lightsabers were designed so that they wouldn't radiate heat that was palpable just by being near it, but he definitely felt heat from his. It was the only thing he could feel at that point, everything else around him had seemingly dissolved into nothing. He pressed the cross guard into the side of his stomach very slowly to maintain control over it.

He cringed with the pain, but held the position of it for as long as he could. His teeth gripped the inside of his lip to keep himself from opening his mouth and screaming. When he couldn't take it anymore, he switched off the lightsaber and instantly uncoiled his fingers from it, allowing it to fall at his side. Ben slowly took breaths in and out with his eyes instinctively kept closed. The pain began to decrease into the numbness of dissociation, he opened his eyes again to examine the extent of his injury.

He could never quite pummel his body enough to reflect how he felt, but he could damn well try.

* * *

Rey had been laying in bed when she felt it. A sudden stinging sensation on her side jerked her from her calm state. She lifted her shirt just enough to investigate, but found that nothing was there. She pressed on the location of the pain, expecting that it would become worse with the pressure, but it didn't.

Then all at once, she understood the reason for the pain. The Force-bond. It wasn't hers at all. It was Ben's.


	6. Chapter 6

Ben was startled by a knock on his door. His hand instinctively went to his painful injury to hide it if he had to. He recognized the voice calling his name from the other side of the door as belonging to Rey.

Ben silently thanked his past self for remembering to lock everyone out the night before. The doorknob rattled but didn't open, yet it still felt like the walls were closing in on him. There was nowhere to hide. Ben heard Rey say his name yet again. She was louder this time and spoke with more urgency.

Ben was jolted back into reality, recognizing the imperative need to react to the situation at hand. Rey was not going to leave until he responded in some manner. He quickly grabbed the innermost layer of his many layers of clothing, a black tank top, and pulled it over his head, wincing as the ribbed fabric rubbed against the injury he had just given himself. Rey tried the door yet again.

Ben looked down to double check that nothing incriminating was on display on his body. Satisfied that she wouldn't see anything he didn't want her to, he held out his hand and unlocked the door by means of the Force, causing Rey to stumble into the room from the unexpected event of the door's sudden opening. She caught herself before she fell, gripping the doorknob with one hand, and holding the other out to maintain her balance.

"Hey," Ben said casually, doing his best to avoid appearing as amused as he was that he'd caused her to nearly fall into his room.

"Hey," Rey said in response, though it sounded more like a question than a greeting.

Rey looked around the room, scanning it carefully. The pain she felt had been unmistakable, yet no one other than Ben was to be found.

"Did I do something?" Ben asked. He wouldn't be the least be surprised to learn that he'd accidentally said something that was mean or broken an unspoken Resistance rule.

Rey hesitated before answering. "I don't know…" She stepped further into the room, leaving the door wide open in the process. She stopped short of stepping on one of Ben's many layers of shirts that had been discarded and thrown haphazardly on the floor.

Without him wearing all of them at once, it was clear to see how prominent his collarbones had become, and how his elbows were nearly the widest part of his arms. But beyond his thin frame, he wasn't visibly damaged as far as she could tell. Rey was about to explain what had happened and dismiss herself when she noticed the quick glances he made toward the weapon that lay at his side.

Rey went back to reach the doorknob and quickly scanned the area immediately outside of the room to make sure no one was around. She closed the door, letting it softly click behind her as she leaned against it. "Did you do something?" Rey asked softly.

"I don't know. What do you think I did?"

"Did you hurt yourself?" Rey asked, keeping her voice both quiet and calm to avoid stressing him out more than she had to.

Ben's eyes widened and his mouth fell open to speak words and phrases that he never ended up saying. He stuttered incoherently, then closed his mouth and drew his knees up to his chest, not without a grimace from the pain.

Rey sighed softly, careful to not appear frustrated with him. She took a few steps closer to him and Ben rested his forehead on his knees, completely retreating into himself. His silence answered her question. It was loud and clear.

Rey bent down and picked up his lightsaber. She carefully turned the metal weapon around in her hand. She sat down on the floor across from Ben, crossing her legs. She then set the lightsaber aside, as far away from Ben as she could reach without the aid of the Force.

Rey had never dealt with a situation like this, so the right words to say didn't come to her easily; she only knew what she would want to be asked if she were in his position: "Are you okay?"

Ben didn't answer. Rey figured his silence gave her the answer to that as well. "How did you know?" he asked sheepishly. The sound was muffled due to his face being buried in his knees.

"I felt it through the Force… I didn't know what I was feeling at first..."

Rey stopped talking, feeling a little bit ill at the thought that she had given him permission to have the very tool that he'd used to do this. She'd warned him not to hurt anyone, but hadn't expected that she would have had to tell him that she didn't want him hurting himself either.

Rey wanted to reach out and hug him so he would stop hiding his face from her, but she'd probably exacerbate the injury and the situation itself if she did. Proper protocol would be to drag him by the wrist into the refresher and run water over it, but she didn't think that was going to happen.

"I'll get you a medpac," Rey said suddenly.

"Don't worry about it, it's fine," Ben said dismissively. But Rey had already stood up to get it and wasn't about to let Ben's dismissal stop her.

She returned in under a minute with the small medpac, relieved to see that Ben hadn't shut her out of the room. Though she was not quite as relieved to see that he hadn't actually moved at all.

"Rey, don't worry about it," Ben said upon sensing the return of her presence. His stubborn refusal was irritating Rey, but she couldn't say that she didn't understand it.

While she understood, unless he told her to leave, she felt it would be more appropriate to stay with him and continue to worry about him. He was in such a fragile state of mind and Rey did not want to leave him to his own devices just yet.

"Okay," she said. "I'll leave this with you so you can tend to it yourself. But I really don't mind helping you with it, if you want," Rey said. "But if it gets infected, you'll need to tell Kalonia. It would be quite silly if your cause of death was from an infection that you were too stubborn to have treated."

Telling someone outright was an absolutely terrifying prospect to Ben, and Kalonia definitely did not need another reason to worry about him.

It had been far easier to deal with this when he was with the First Order. The accessibility of medical droids spared him the embarrassment of having to explain to a fellow human or humanoid why he had gotten injured at very odd times for unlikely reasons. The only other creature with a heartbeat to discover Ben's self-inflicted injuries was Snoke, and that hadn't exactly been a very pleasant experience.

Snoke hadn't been the least bit concerned about his mental well-being, never tried to stop him, much less worried about him getting an infection. The possibility of accidental or intentional death had been the only thing Snoke concerned himself with upon his discovery of the self-inflicted injuries. Snoke had told him more or less that he was permitted to keep hurting himself, even encouraged to do so as long as it was helping his weak-minded apprentice channel the dark side. The only stipulation was that he wouldn't go as far as to kill himself.

Ben didn't know what Rey wanted to hear in this situation, so he told her what Snoke had wanted to hear. "If it eases any concern, I don't intend for this to end my life," Ben said.

"I'm glad you don't," Rey said, uncertain if that was the right thing to say in response to Ben's self-destructive actions.

Things were quiet for a few moments until Ben clenched his fists and lifted his head from his knees. "We need to figure out how to break this bond," he said. It seemed as though the past five minutes had aged him five years. His voice was strained and raspy, and his eyes hadn't yet had time to readjust to the light.

Rey gave him a pained look. "Why do you think that?"

"I don't want you to feel it when I…" Ben trailed off, uncertain of exactly how to describe what he was doing.

"You don't want me to know when you hurt yourself," Rey corrected.

"Exactly," Ben said. He shot her a worried glance. "Do you feel it now?"

Rey shook her head. "Do you do this often, then?"

"Not with a lightsaber until now, but… yes," Ben dragged out the last two words, emphasizing them by hanging his head in shame. The silence that followed made him more aware of the pain of the lightsaber burn; it still stung intensely under the fabric of his shirt, and he was sure it was already starting to blister. It felt wet underneath his shirt and he was certain that it was leaking through.

He touched it to confirm what he already suspected.

Rey cringed at Ben's actions. She was not an expert at treating wounds, but she knew that Ben was not helping the situation at all.

"Will you let me see it? I want to make sure you're not seriously injured," Rey said.

"As you can see," Ben motioned to his face, "I've sustained lightsaber burns before."

Rey looked at the scar across his face, finally taking note of the severity. It trailed down his chin and his chest. And she had done that to him.

A similar, but less obvious scar was on his arm, and yet another marred his shoulder.

"And I'm sure you had someone to look after them when they happened," Rey said.

"Just droids really."

Rey nodded in understanding and gently touched the scar on his face, as if it were the first time she'd seen it. "I'm sorry," Rey said, "I kind of scarred you for life."

"It's okay. I like it."

Rey didn't know how to respond, so she removed her hand from his face and changed the subject back to where it should have been in the first place. "I don't have to feel it to know you're in pain. You have to at least let it breathe so it doesn't get any worse."

Ben stared her down as he gathered the courage to expose it. He sucked in his stomach out of habit and pulled the fabric away from the site of the injury before lifting it to show her what he had done. He took a quick glance at it, feeling disappointed with himself. It was barely worth worrying about.

But Rey audibly gasped, "Ben…" she said in a breathy voice. The bright red and inflamed skin of the burn was impossible to miss. But the burn was only one of many injuries he had clearly sustained.

His skin was completely discolored from the amount of bruising and scarring on his torso. Not a single inch of what was clearly his designated area of his body was left unmarred. "Did you do all of this?" Rey asked. "Nevermind, don't answer that."

As if to prove that she was there to help him physically rather than pry, she opened the medpac and started rummaging through it.

But Ben took it away from her and closed it.

"Don't worry about it," Ben said. "And yes, I did this all myself," he added as an afterthought, completely disregarding her previous plea to ignore her question.

Rey looked up from his stomach and peered into his eyes, trying to figure out what was going on in his head. "Why? And why won't you let me help you?"

"I don't need help," Ben said firmly.

"You do. You clearly aren't doing okay on your own."

Ben looked at her incredulously. "I am doing what I have to do," he said defensively.

Rey realized how insensitive she must have sounded to him in his already fragile state and instantly gained a more sympathetic tone, "Hey, I'm not mad at you. I'm just worried is all."

"Don't. I'm okay."

"You're not," she said firmly. If Rey hadn't already told him that she wasn't mad at him he probably would have become a complete emotional, self-destructive wreck just from the mere idea of her being angry with him. "You can't honestly tell me that you're okay if you think hurting yourself is an acceptable way to deal with life."

Ben didn't respond; he couldn't come up with a logical counter-argument. Rey fought back the tears that had threatened to spill from her eyes. Rey glanced down at the burn on his abdomen that was still on display for her to see. She quickly closed her eyes, allowing a sudden wave of nausea pass before trying to speak again. When she was certain she could open her eyes again without getting sick from her own guilt, she opened her eyes again, focusing on the floor rather than at him.

"Will you at least let me help you take care of it?" Rey asked.

"No. Don't worry about it, it's okay…" Ben said softly, also trying to keep himself from crying.

He swiftly moved his shirt back over his injury as if to further prove his point. When it hurt, he didn't even flinch. Rey, however, did flinch. Not because she could feel it herself, but because she felt an incredible amount of empathy toward her friend.

"Don't tell anyone," Ben said as if he were a small child who got caught cheating at a game. But he was definitely not a child and so Rey wanted to respect his wishes to the best of her ability.

She hummed in response, but didn't tell him she wouldn't.

"Rey…" Ben warned.

Rey still said nothing.

"Don't you dare tell anyone!" He raised his voice even more than he had intended. He rarely yelled and was typically quiet and soft-spoken by nature. Fits of rage were frequent but still shocked him when they occurred.

"Ben, calm down," Rey said.

"I can't! This is not your story to tell!"

"Fine, I won't tell anyone," Rey said, instantly regretting it.

Ben sighed in relief.

"But if you feel like hurting yourself again, you can come get me and we'll find you a better way to cope," Rey offered.

"Okay, but what if it doesn't work and I do it anyway?" Ben asked.

"Then I'll be proud of you for trying. I'm already proud of you."

"Don't be. I don't deserve it," Ben said as if it were the most obvious thing in the galaxy.

Rey shook her head, "You're wrong."

"I've done so many things that I deserve to be punished for."

"You've been punished enough. You don't need to keep doing it yourself."

"I do," Ben mumbled. He knew that Rey would never understand, but he was okay with that. He didn't need her to.

He was just grateful that she was there.

* * *

Rey woke up first. She sat up quickly and straightened her aching back, groaning softly as she did so. Sleeping on the floor was not something she had been accustomed to.

It also wasn't where she had intended to sleep that night by any means. She looked over at Ben, who was exactly where he was when she last saw him the previous night, though he was now lying down, fast asleep.

Rey felt a smile tug at her lips. He looked so peaceful. As if, for once, he was not afraid that someone would hurt him.

And she would try to the best of her ability to make sure that no one would, though preventing him from hurting himself was beyond her abilities at the moment.

She glanced over at the lightsaber that she had taken into her own custody the night before. Knowing what Ben's stomach currently looked like made her want to take it while he was asleep and was unable to fight her for it, but everything he had said the day before about wanting to feel safe was still fresh in her mind. Was safety from other people really worth risking him being unsafe by himself?

Rey stared at his sleeping figure and finally placed the lightsaber by his hand, careful not to wake him up in the process.

Rey took soft steps toward the door. She slowly opened the door and took a look back to the sleeping man, and he did not stir. She then very carefully slipped out of the room and slowly closed the door behind her.

* * *

When Ben finally awakened, he blinked a few times, trying to make sense of the lightsaber he was staring at. He sat up almost too quickly, causing him to take in a sharp breath as his skin shifted and the pain from his burn worsened. His hand reflexively went to it, as if touching it would heal it alone. Not even the Force would prevent him from feeling the pain, not that he would try to ease it if he could.

He looked around the room for Rey, but it seemed as though she had slipped out at some point during the night. Somehow it made him feel more disappointed than he'd expected.

Though maybe it was good that Rey had left; after all, if she had woken up next to him, she probably would have tried to convince him that it was a beautiful morning for proper nourishment or something to that effect.

Plus, he doubted he would be able to check his body to make sure he was not gaining weight if she were still there. If he couldn't check his body, then he would have to assume that he was bigger and then he wouldn't be allowed to eat anyway. And if he had done it despite Rey being there, then she would probably worry and try to make him eat regardless.

Ben's stomach growled at him; his body was weak and longed to be fed. Even Ben couldn't deny how wonderful it would be if he could just sit down and eat the delicious and "balanced" meals that the others ate without caring about the amount of energy contained in each component of the meal or hating himself for days to come.

But that would be impossible.

Ben clenched his teeth and slowly exhaled through the pain of the hunger before removing his outermost layer of clothing so that he could properly examine if yesterday's slice of bread, bowl of vegetables, and sixteen crackers had affected his body negatively.

His hands were shaking so violently that even removing his shirt was difficult, sometimes he worried that he was so weak and lightheaded that he'd manage to pass out from the exertion and suffocate in the fabric.

It had never happened, but the possibility of it, as ridiculous as it sounded, was not lost on him. Now that would be a stupid way to die.

If he happened to die from this, he hoped it would be peacefully in his sleep. The sharp pains in his chest that sometimes came out to play late at night made him worry that there was something wrong with his heart and that if he fell asleep he could die. No matter how much he thought he wanted to die, it scared him to be in so much pain that he legitimately thought he could.

Yet he was never really thankful to wake up and have to suffer the whole routine again. Wake up, make sure he is not any bigger, avoid eating a normal amount of food all day, hurt himself at night if he failed or otherwise needed to do it, then attempt to fall asleep despite the chest pains and hope to live to see another day.

He examined his body, measuring carefully with his hands. He was relieved to find that he didn't seem any bigger. If anything, he appeared to be getting smaller.

Ben took time to prepare himself before getting up off the floor that he had slept on; he gripped the bed as he pulled himself up. He was out of breath when he finally stood upright. He didn't know whether to be disappointed in himself for his weakness or proud that he had the strength to have gotten himself that weak.

He got himself a set of extra clothes that he learned he was slightly too tall for as his mother had previously mentioned, and went to the refresher to take a shower.

Unfortunately, showers had become a difficult task too. The water had to be warm enough that he wouldn't freeze underneath it, but had to be cool enough that there wasn't so much steam that he risked passing out.

If someone had told him that before he even reached the age of thirty that he would have trouble with the simple task of cleaning himself, he would have made the assumption that it was because of serious battle wounds, but no, it was a self-imposed restriction of food and self-inflicted injuries.

Ben huddled in the corner of the shower when he didn't feel strong enough to stand in it any longer. His hands trembled as he held them against his legs. He couldn't really feel them, or feel anything for that matter. It felt like he was someone else and he was watching himself make stupid decisions that seemed so easy to snap out of from the outside looking in.

He rested on the cold shower floor long after shutting the water off. He hoped the Force would mind its own business and prevent Rey from feeling his dizziness or worse, actually seeing his body and how horrid it really was.

Ben finally stepped out of the shower, dried off his body and started slowly dressing himself, being extra careful to not exert himself too much in the process.

The clothes covered his body enough that no one would realize how thin he really was. The pants were maybe a size too big for him in the waist now. The belt was fastened more tightly than it ever had been before. Having to ask for new clothes or for someone to teach him the art of sewing because he'd gotten smaller when there had really been no reason to lose weight in the first place would be extremely embarrassing, so he hoped when the time came that they would already trust him to leave the confines of the base on his own to procure his own clothes.

His hair was still slightly damp and an unreasonable amount of strands fell out when he ran his fingers through it. He sighed bitterly. The side effects were not remotely attractive.

His stomach growled again to serve as a reminder of Ben's biological need for food in case he had somehow managed to forget. He silenced it with a quick blow to his stomach.

He would have done more, but after last night, he didn't really want to risk Rey discovering him hurting himself again. It would be difficult to prevent himself from doing it, as punching himself was really just routine now, it was easy, immediate, required no special tool to do it, and alleviated bad thoughts instantly.

Ben gave himself a second to gather his composure before leaving the refresher. He collected his previously worn clothes to wash later and threw the many hairs that had fallen from his head into the bin.

He left the refresher and went back to his room for his lightsaber. He didn't understand why Rey had left it. He was thankful to have it for his own peace of mind, but he wondered if maybe it meant that Rey didn't care as much as she claimed to. Though when he picked up the weapon, he caught sight of the medpac that Rey had gotten for him the night before.

With a strong sense of guilt, he picked it up and opened it.


End file.
